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COFYRKiHT DEPOSIT. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 



ORGANIZED 
DEMOCRACY 



BY 



ALBERT STICKNEY 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

(Cbc iRiberitfide pxe0y Cambribse 

1906 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 

Two Cepies Received 

OCT tl 1906 

^ Copyrieht Entry 
CLASS A )^^c., NO, 
COPY B. /• 



COPYRIGHT 1906 BY ALBERT STICKNKY 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published October jgob 



J 



" OoD said, I am tired of kings, 
I suffer them no more ; 
Up to my ear the morning brings 
The outrage of the poor. 

•* I will have never a noble ; 
No lineage counted great ; 
Fishers and choppers and ploughmen 
Shall constitute a State." 

Emebson. 

" But a democratic nation may be imagined, organized differently from the 
American people. Is it, then, impossible to conceive a government really 
established upon the will of the majority, but in which the majority, repress- 
ing its natural instinct of equality, should consent, with a view to the order 
and stability of the State, to invest a family or an individual with all the 
attributes of executive power ? Might not a democratic society be imagined 
in which the forces of the nation would be more centralized than they are 
in the United States ; where the people would exercise a less direct and less 
irresistible influence upon public affairs, and yet every citizen, invested with 
certain rights, would participate, within his sphere, in the conduct of the 
government ? " — Ioc4UETii<lb. 



CONTENTS 

I. Machine Politics 1 

II. Organized Democbact 23 

III. The Cost of Machine Politics . . • 116 

rV. The Necessity of Reorganization • • 200 

V. General Considerations 221 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 
CHAPTER I 

MACHINE POLITICS 

Modern political history, in its most important 
aspect, has been the story of the struggle for polit- 
ical freedom, freedom of thought, speech, and ac- 
tion; for the right of each people to govern itself 
in its own way; to make its own free choice of its 
political institutions, and its rulers. Putting the 
statement in a slightly different form, the most 
important feature of modem political history has 
been the struggle of democracy against monarchy. 
The struggle has not yet ended. It has, how- 
ever, already reached such a stage of advancement 
that democratic institutions have fully vindicated 
their right to survive, by the practical results 
which they have achieved, after the severest test 
in the laboratory of experience. Democratic insti- 
tutions have already proved, to the satisfaction of 
the most competent judges, that they accomplish 



2 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

the end of government, the greatest good of the 
greatest number, better than institutions of any 
other kind. 

Democratic institutions, however, are still in 
their infancy, are still almost in their rudimen- 
tary stage of development. Only during the last 
century can they be said to have been put to the 
test of actual experiment on any large scale. Prior 
to our National Constitution of 1787 democratic 
institutions had been in operation only in small 
communities; generally in single cities, in peoples 
of small numbers. Their form with us, to-day, 
is almost the same as the earliest that was ever 
put in use. There has been slight change in the 
matter of form. 

Consequently, it is a virtual certainty that the 
poUtical institutions of this American people — 
to-day — are susceptible of improvement. It can 
hardly be, that the first experiments in democracy 
were a final complete success. Human inventions 
are always at first imperfect. At first, they take 
imperfect forms. They require repeated modifi- 
cation before they can accomplish their best re- 
sults. Democratic institutions furnish no excep- 
tion in this respect to the universal law. They are 
still imperfect. They still have defects. Those 
defects can be ascertained, and remedied. 



MACHINE POLITICS 3 

In recent times, we have attached too little impor- 
tance to political institutions. Institutions are the 
machinery of politics. The political results that any 
people can accompHsh are limited by its political 
machinery. We cannot get a speed of sixty miles 
an hour with a two-wheeled ox cart on an old- 
fashioned corduroy road. No more is it a possi- 
biUty for us to get wise and efBcient administra- 
tion of our public affairs from our present form 
of democratic government. It served our politi- 
cal needs passably in our early days, when we were 
a small people, with small aggregates of men and 
money; when public treasuries were small; when 
public affairs throughout were on a small scale. 
But it is no longer equal to our political needs. 

We can go further. Not only do our political 
institutions require improvement, but we may 
almost say that our present poUtical institutions 
are not genuinely democratic. It is the very essence 
of democracy, that a people should be able to make 
its own free choice of its rulers. If it cannot do 
that, it can hardly be said that its institutions are 
really democratic. But who will say that this 
American people to-day really makes its own free 
choice of its rulers ? Do what we will, toil as hard 
as we may, we do not get the men of our own 
free choice for the high places in our different 



4 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

governments. No doubt, we do occasionally suc- 
ceed in electing, to some single oflSce, some one 
man who happens, for the time, to be " popular." 
No doubt, too, we do occasionally defeat one or 
the other political " party," at some single election. 
But we never succeed in putting the control of our 
public affairs in the hands of any large number of 
men of our own choice; men who in our judgment 
are the fittest men to be charged with the respon- 
sibilities of government. Democracy means, if it 
means anything, a government where the supreme 
power in the State is the will of the people. But 
who would venture to say that the will of the peo- 
ple is with us — to-day — the supreme power in the 
body poUtic ? 

What is the reason ? 

We must concede that, under our present form 
of government, we have enough of the process of 
popular election. Indeed, it might almost be said 
that we have little else. One election is hardly fin- 
ished, with its distribution of the spoils of victory, 
when we begin preparation for the next. Our poUti- 
cal " campaigns " come but once a year. But they 
seem never to end. Our political life is a per- 
petual series of popular elections. The work has 
already become so burdensome, and so mechan- 
ical, that it is now gravely proposed to have the 



MACHINE POLITICS 5 

citizen's part in the process done by the mere 
pressing of a button. Under the old theory of 
democratic institutions, voting was supposed to 
call for the exercise of thought, of intelhgence, of 
judgment, on the part of the citizen. He was sup- 
posed to pass his judgment on the fitness of men 
for high public station, when he exercised the elec- 
tive franchise and deposited his ballot at the polls. 
But we have now at last succeeded in reducing 
the function of the citizen to the act of placing 
"his mark" against one of several lists of names, 
in the making of which he has virtually no voice. 
It is now further proposed, to make his action 
even more completely mechanical, and reduce it 
to the touching of a button. Verily, "machine 
politics " could no further go. 

What is the reason for this situation ? 

We turn government into an election machine. 
Our political life is a never-ending series of popu- 
lar elections — so-called. Each year we put up 
a large number of our highest public oflSces to be 
filled by the process of popular election. These 
public offices constitute so many election prizes. 
They bring into being large organizations of men, 
which we term " parties," which are really formed 
for the purpose of capturing these annual collec- 
tions of election prizes. The fact that elections 



6 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

come every year, with each year a fresh collection 
of oflScial vacancies, makes the work of these or- 
ganizations continuous. Thereby the organiza- 
tions are made permanent. Their leaders come to 
possess what amounts to a power of appointment 

— of all public ofl&cials. We please ourselves with 
the fancy, that our high public officials are chosen 
by the people, through the process of popular elec- 
tion. In fact, they are selected by the machine 
politicians, through what amounts to a power of 
appointment. The citizen becomes a mere at- 
tachment to some party "machine." The pro- 
cess of popular election becomes little more than 
a form. No doubt the people, that is, the mass 
of citizens, does have an option between two or 
more "tickets," each made by some group of ma- 
chine politicians, or by their leaders. But that is 
all. That is far from giving to "the people" its 
own free choice. The process of popular elec- 
tion, as we now operate it, fails to fulfill its legiti- 
mate function, that of securing an expression of 
the will of the people. The action of the citizen, 
and of the people, becomes almost mechanical. 

The cause of the difficulty will be found to lie 

— mainly — in our use of the separate individual 
ballot, in combination with our system of short 
fixed terms of office. 



MACHINE POLITICS 7 

The separate ballot virtually compels the cit- 
izen to vote for the candidates of some large or- 
ganization. Otherwise his vote will be lost. 

The system of fixed terms of years for the 
tenure of our high public officials furnishes our 
large collection of annual vacancies; and thus 
calls into existence these standing armies of pro- 
fessional politicians, that we term " parties." The 
ordinary citizen, if his vote is to count, is — in 
practice — compelled to vote for the candidates 
of one or another of these "parties." He joins 
one. Under all ordinary circumstances, he votes 
his regular party ticket. 

The theory of our present political system is, 
that the use of the process of popular election, at 
short fixed intervals of time, for large numbers 
of high public officials, by the separate individ- 
ual ballot, keeps the supreme control of public 
affairs directly in the hands of the citizens; and 
in that way ensures "government of the people." 

Under this theory, the highest public officials 
are elected by the separate secret ballot, for fixed 
terms of years, — usually short, — on the idea that 
the mass of voting citizens, at the end of each 
official term, are to signify their approval, or dis- 
approval, of the public action of each separate 
official; by reelecting him, if his action meets 



8 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

their approval; by electing some other man in his 
place, if his action meets their disapproval. In 
this way, the citizens are supposed to keep the 
supreme control of pubUc affairs directly in their 
own hands; to enforce responsibility to the people; 
and secure "government by the people." 

The theory is plausible. Some such form of 
democratic government is practically the only one 
that has ever been tried. Even to-day it is the 
only form of democratic government which is 
considered practicable by the large majority of 
believers in democracy. 

The soundness of the theory could not have 
been successfully challenged, until its practical 
results had been made evident by our own large 
political experience. 

Let us see what that experience shows. 

In small communities, with small numbers of 
voting citizens, and small numbers of public oflS- 
cials, where public affairs ^re on a small scale, 
the results are endurable. 

Large communities, however, with their large 
numbers of voting citizens and elective offices, 
put the theory to a different test. The work of 
operating the election machinery becomes so ex- 
tensive, and so intricate, that the ordinary citizen 
cannot take the time required for its performance. 



MACHINE POLITICS 9 

When we consider these large constituencies of 
hundreds of thousands of voting citizens, such as 
we now have in many of our cities, of milhons, 
such as we have in some of the states, of fifteen 
millions and upwards, such as we have in a pre- 
sidential election, then it is easily seen that the 
operation of the process of popular election, by 
separate direct individual ballot, where the entire 
body of citizens vote in their own persons, gets 
far beyond the powers of the ordinary busy mem- 
bers of the community. Large constituencies in- 
volve the necessity of equally large organizations, 
for the purpose of nominating candidates and 
influencing votes for the support of those candi- 
dates. City and county elections require organ- 
izations covering the cities and counties. State 
organizations must cover the states. National 
organizations must cover the entire nation. The 
practical result is, that the work of operating the 
election machinery attains such magnitude and in- 
tricacy, that it far transcends the capacities of the 
community's workers, whose time always is, and 
must be, given mainly to their private affairs. 
Consequently, the work of operating the election 
machinery falls into the hands of men who make 
it their special occupation, who give to it substan- 
tially their entire time. Those men become pro- 



10 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

fessionals. The rest of the citizens, with their 
best efforts, are only amateurs. The professionals 
beat the amateurs. The main body of the citi- 
zens, in the hands of these professional opera- 
tors of our election machinery, become mere at- 
tachments to one or the other part of the great 
election machine. In practice, the professionals 
have the entire control of the selection of candi- 
dates. The utmost that the voting citizen can do, 
if he wishes his vote to count, is to vote for one 
or another " ticket," made by one or another group 
of these professionals. He joins one or another 
of these large election organizations. As a rule, 
he follows its leaders, regularly and loyally. In 
general, men do not like to desert. Nor do they 
like deserters. It becomes, therefore, the almost 
universal rule, that each individual citizen ad- 
heres, under all ordinary circumstances, to one 
or the other of these permanent organizations 
of professionals ; and votes mechanically — year 
after year — his regular "party ticket." Occa- 
sionally, in his disgust with the acts of his own 
"party," he may vote for the candidates of the 
other " party." But this seldom happens. Almost 
invariably he will vote his regular "party ticket." 
The result is that the citizen has no real power, 
no real weight, in the selection of public officials. 



MACHINE POLITICS 11 

or in the control of their policies. Practically 
he becomes a mere political puppet, in the hands 
of the machine politicians. Practically he sur- 
renders his political freedom, with the exercise 
of his political judgment, and his political con- 
science. 

The theory is, that by the direct separate secret 
ballot we secure to the citizen complete political 
freedom, and complete political power. The fact 
is, we have established the most wonderful and in- 
genious system of political slavery that the world 
has yet seen. Framed by the citizens themselves, 
for the express purpose of keeping the supreme 
control of public affairs in their own hands, in 
order to ensure direct governmental responsibil- 
ity to the citizens in their own persons, the actual 
practical result is, to create an irresponsible oli- 
garchy of machine politicians; an arbitrary office- 
holding class; composed of men not selected by 
the people, and not responsible to the people. In 
substance, in its practical operation, our govern- 
ment is not democratic. 

But we have another singular feature of the 
situation. The men who "go into poHtics," as 
the phrase is, do so, in the large majority of cases, 
for the reason that they need the salaries. In 
other words, they are not the successful men in 



12 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

the regular private callings. No doubt, a large 
number of single individuals enter public life 
from praiseworthy motives; with an earnest wish 
to do good pubKc service. But the large majority 
of the men who do the daily work of the election 
machine do it because they have the time for it, 
because their services are not in demand in the 
private occupations. Our office-holding class is 
largely composed of men who have failed in pri- 
vate life. Their services are not in demand, by 
reason of their lack of the requisite intelligence, 
industry, or, it may be, honesty. The result is, to 
a large extent we are governed by an oligarchy 
of the unemployed. 

It may be said that it is the duty of every citi- 
zen to take, and give, the time which is required 
for the operation of this elaborate machinery. 
But that has been found in actual experience to 
be impracticable. The large majority of our citi- 
zens, by reason of the limitations of time and 
means, are compelled to select some one Une of 
work, and give to it their entire energies. Espe- 
cially, in these modem days, it is a practical 
impossibility with the large majority of men, that 
they should give proper attention to the engross- 
ing work of any private business or profession, 
and at the same time take an active part in the 



MACHINE POLITICS 13 

operation of the election machine. Either occupa- 
tion is exclusive. No doubt the citizen owes it to 
the state to give to public affairs the time needed 
for the operation of the machinery of government. 
The citizen should — no doubt — give to the state 
the time necessary for the full discharge of his 
civic duties. On the other hand, however, the 
citizen's civic duties must] be established with a 
due regard to his individual capacities, and the 
legitimate demands of his private affairs. There is 
our present difficulty. It is with us — to-day — 
an impossibility for busy working men to take an 
active part in the operation of our election machin- 
ery, for the mere reason that our present politi- 
cal system puts on the citizen a burden which he 
cannot carry. It taxes him beyond his capacities. 
Many men have made the attempt to take an ac- 
tive part in "practical politics." Sooner or later 
they generally find themselves compelled to aban- 
don either politics or the work of their own private 
calling. But with most men this abandonment of 
the work of their private calling is an impossibility. 

It may be thought that the situation here stated 
is peculiar to the United States, and is due to ex- 
ceptional conditions existing with us. 

That view will not stand the test of careful ex- 
amination. The results here stated are the in- 



14 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

evitable consequence of any attempt, in any form, 
to keep the control of public affairs in the hands 
of the entire mass of citizens, in any large com- 
munity, by any combination of the separate ballot 
and the system of term elections. 

Let us give it further consideration. 

No means has ever yet been devised, nor, as it 
seems to me, is it possible that any can be devised, 
whereby the final supreme control of public men 
and public measures can be kept directly in the 
hands of the entire mass of citizens, except the 
process of periodic popular election by the citi- 
zens' direct individual votes. No way exists for 
controlUng an employee except the possession of 
the power to discharge him. If that power is to 
be exercised by the citizens in their own persons, 
it can only be by the use of the direct separate 
ballot. In order to give to that control any prac- 
tical value, the opportunity for such a discharge 
must come with a fair degree of frequency. But 
it is impossible that the citizens should be voting 
on their public servants every day, or at irregular 
intervals. They are compelled to make such vot- 
ing periodic. They are compelled to adopt the 
term system. Consequently, the only method by 
which we can make so much as a formal attempt 
at keeping public servants and pubUc affairs under 



MACHINE POLITICS 15 

the direct control of the citizens in mass, is, that 
the highest public servants should be elective, 
and should submit to the process of reelection, 
periodically, at the end of short fixed terms of 
years. So far as my reading goes, no other way 
has ever been tried, or suggested. No other seems 
possible. 

The result which has come in this country 
must necessarily come in any large community, 
where the attempt is made to keep the final con- 
trol of public men and pubUc measures in the 
hands of the citizens in mass. As matter of fact, 
that result has come, whenever, and wherever, the 
system of short elective terms has been tried. 
Whenever in large communities the attempt is 
made to keep the control of public officers and 
public affairs directly in the hands of the citi- 
zens, it must be through the process of frequent 
periodic popular election; in other words, by a 
term system, where the citizens vote directly, in 
their own persons, for high public officials in con- 
siderable numbers, at short fixed intervals of time. 
The inevitable result is the establishment of these 
large election organizations of professional poli- 
ticians, which are formed, and exist, in order to 
capture the control of the public work and the 
public treasuries. 



16 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

It may be said that under this system of short 
terms the citizens do, at least, have it in their 
power to remove any elective pubUc official at the 
end of his term. 

But of what practical value is the possession of 
that power, when the new men, who will be put in 
the places of the officials removed, will always — 
or practically always — be the nominees of the 
same body, or some other body, of professional 
politicians ? The decisive point is that, in the long 
run, at all ordinary times, the highest public offi- 
cials will necessarily and certainly be selected by 
the machine politicians. One body of machine 
politicians is no better and no worse than another. 
They may give themselves different names. They 
may give us difPerent "platforms." But the men 
in all these organizations are necessarily of the same 
kind. They are trained in the same school. They 
use the same methods. Consequently, it makes 
little or no practical difference that the citizens 
have it in their power, at short intervals of time, 
to oust one set of professionals and put another in 
its place. It still remains the fact, that the term 
system does not give to the citizens the real choice 
of their own rulers, and the control of their own 
public affairs. 

No doubt to a certain extent public officials are 



MACHINE POLITICS 17 

kept under some degree of restraint by the possi- 
bility of removal through an adverse election at the 
end of their term. 

But what real value is to be attached to that ? The 
fact still remains, that the successors will be the 
appointees of the machine politicians. Our public 
officials have now well learned that fact. No man 
— in ordinary times — can get a nomination, or 
an election, to public office, except by the permis- 
sion of the machine poUticians. All public officials, 
therefore, are under their control. Occasionally 
it will happen that a mayor, a governor, or even 
a president, may for a time attempt to resist the 
will of the professionals, in an effort to serve the 
highest public interests. But in the long run, in 
the vast majority of instances, the politicians will 
control. Public officers are well aware of that fact. 
They have well learned that, when the annual elec- 
tion comes, the citizen must, and will, "rally," 
around one or another "party standard." If some 
single official has made himself obnoxious to the 
voters by liis especially bad record, the profession- 
als lay him aside, and put in his place some other 
man, of good general reputation, who is generally 
as submissive to their control as his predecessors. 
Our public officials know that political advance- 
ment is, in general, possible only by the permis- 



18 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

sion of the operators of the election machine. Con- 
sequently, our public officials are controlled by 
those operators. 

Another result follows. 

The operation of these large election organiza- 
tions requires the expenditure of large amounts 
of money, running each year into many millions 
of dollars. Naturally, and inevitably, the party 
managers who are compelled to raise these large 
amounts of money procure them from the large 
financial and industrial interests that are subject 
to legislative and other official action. The great 
campaign funds come from those large interests. 
The result is, that legislation, with other public 
official action, in all our governments, local, state, 
and national, one just as much as another, is 
largely controlled by the men who supply the 
money for the "legitimate campaign expenses," 
as the phrase is, of these great election organiza- 
tions. There is no express contract to that effect. 
It is seldom that money is paid directly to a pub- 
lic official, to pay for any specific official act. Such 
pajmaents are needless. The action of public offi- 
cials is controlled through payments of money to 
the managers of the election machine. It is quite 
unnecessary to buy the servant, when one has in 
his regular pay the master. We give ourselves 



MACHINE POLITICS 19 

much alarm over the occasional purchase of a few 
individual voters. But what are we to say of the 
purchase — in effect — of votes by the hundred 
thousand — by the million ? Yet that is what is 
actually accomplished, when men purchase the 
"influence" of the powerful machine politicians. 
Single politicians, or single groups of politicians, 
who control the selection of our highest public oflfi- 
cials, practically buy and sell the votes of us citi- 
zens, by the hundreds of thousands and the mil- 
lions. Under such circumstances, it is childish, 
trifling, for us to consider the matter of buying and 
selling a few individual votes, of individual voters. 
We talk to-day of "party government." "Party 
government " with us to-day means nothing more 
or less than government by one or the other part of 
the election machine. Government by the election 
machine means government by money. In short, 
what we have accomplished at the present day, in 
the way of establisliing democratic institutions, may 
almost be summed up in one phrase: We have 
achieved, not democracy, but plutocracy. 

Let me not be misunderstood. In most cases the 
financial and industrial interests which thus control 
public ofiicials, do so not of their own free will. 
They do it largely under compulsion. They are 
not free agents. In general, capitalists would pre- 



20 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

fer to secure their lawful rights by lawful means. 
These large amounts of money, which they pay to 
the machine politicians, they pay by virtue of neces- 
sity, generally in self-defense. Most moneyed men 
would prefer not to make the payments, if they 
could avoid it; if they could secure the rightful pro- 
tection of the law by other means. Our machine 
politicians are the successors, under new names 
and new conditions, of the old feudal barons, who 
levied blackmail as payment for peace ; for per- 
mission to the working portion of the community 
to follow their daily occupations, and do their daily 
work, in peace. 

It may be conceded, and it is my belief, that even 
our present form of plutocracy, taking it as a whole, 
gives us better working results than any form of 
hereditary government. Nevertheless, plutocracy 
is not democracy. Our object, under our present 
form of government, is to secure genuine "gov- 
ernment by the people." But " government by the 
people " surely means something better than govern- 
ment by the election machine, under the control 
of money, even if the machine has two parts, under 
the name of " parties ; " and even if we have it in 
our power occasionally to change one "party" for 
the other. 

Our political experience has now well estab- 



MACHINE POLITICS 21 

lished this political law. Any attempt, in any form, 
to keep the selection of public servants, and the 
control of public affairs, directly in the hands of 
the citizens in mass, must necessarily and cer- 
tainly bring the result which it has brought with 
us. Necessarily — and certainly — it will place 
the control of public affairs in the hands of an oli- 
garchy of irresponsible machine politicians. Neces- 
sarily — and certainly — those politicians will be 
under the control of money. Practically the system 
will result in the virtual disfranchisement of the 
honest and industrious portion of the community. 
In short, the attempt at mass rule, in any form, 
gives as its practical result the tyranny of the elec- 
tion machine. 

It is a tyranny of a new kind, the tyranny of an 
institution. It enslaves the entire community, gov- 
ernors and governed. It destroys political freedom, 
for both citizen and the public servant. Take our 
public servants as they are to-day; chosen as they 
are, and trained as they are, and the fact is, that 
the large majority of them would prefer to give us 
an honest and efficient administration of our pub- 
he affairs. But they are not free men. They are 
the appointees, and the slaves, of the election ma- 
cliines. They are in the same position with us 
citizens. They have no freedom of action. 



22 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

The proper name for our system of short elec- 
tive terms of office is that it is a system of tenure 
by election. 

Thereupon we may state an unfailing political 
law : Tenure by election turns government into an 
election machine. 

We must seek further, then, if we expect to real- 
ize, in practice, the result which is meant by the 
phrase "government of the people, by the people, 
for the people." We must work on other lines, if 
we expect to make democracy a practical success. 



CHAPTER II 

ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

Evert people, every body politic, under govern- 
ment of any form, must be organized. That means 
that in every political community, under any form 
of government, public work must be specialized. 
Each kind of public work must be done by men 
specially selected for that kind of work. The de- 
gree and form of the specialization will vary in 
different communities. But in every community, 
whatever be the form of its government, public 
work must be specialized. In other words, there 
must be organization. 

Democracy is no exception to this law. Even 
under a "government by the people," even in the 
smallest communities, there must be the division of 
labor, specialization. In other words, even a demo- 
cracy must be organized. 

What, then, is organized democracy? 

Let us begin our attempt to answer this question 
by stating what it is not. 

It most certainly is not government by every- 



24 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

body. It is not government by rotation; govern- 
ment by the entire mass of citizens, turn and turn 
about; one man taking a hand at some kind of 
pubHc work for a few years, and then some other 
man, equally ignorant and inexperienced, taking 
his place for a few later years. The attempt at gov- 
ernment of that kind, as our experience has now 
demonstrated, gives "macliine politics," and not 
democracy. We cannot get democracy by perpet- 
ual periodic changes in the persons of our public 
officials ; by any process of perpetual periodic re- 
volution. 

Moreover, political organization, to some ex- 
tent, must be had in the very smallest communities. 
Even in the government of a small country town, 
the actual daily work of administration must be 
done by men specially selected. Even in the small- 
est rural communities, if we give to the individual 
citizen the fullest possible share in the practical 
operation of the government, we shall still find that 
the regular daily work of government must be done 
by a few men specially selected ; in the time-honored 
phrase of New England, by "selectmen." Even 
in the little country town, the outside practicable 
field for the action of the ordinary citizen is, that 
he shall have his one voice in the selection of those 
few "selectmen." 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 25 

When, however, we consider the government of 
large communities, of large cities, states, or of a 
nation, then the necessity of organization becomes 
simply overwhelming. In all large communities, 
government by the entire body of citizens in mass, 
or government by perpetual rotation, becomes a 
glaring and grotesque impossibility. In small com- 
munities, public work, being on a smaller scale, 
and less intricate, requires a less degree of spe- 
cial training. Country roads do not require the 
same solidity and finish with the public highways 
in the cities ; for they do not carry as heavy traffic. 
Country schools deal with pupils in smaller num- 
bers ; and do not require, in general, such com- 
plex educational apphances. In short, all the public 
work is on a smaller scale, and has less intricacy. 
The result is, in the small rural communities, that 
public work need not be specialized so highly. 
Nevertheless, it must be specialized. In other 
words, there must be organization. 

These considerations clear the way for an af- 
firmative statement of the form of organized de- 
mocracy. 

Its form must be decided by the application to 
public affairs of the methods, and the system, 
which human experience has shown to be best 
fitted for the handling of large private affairs, in the 



26 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

hands of large private corporations. A city, a state, 
or a nation is a "body politic," a large public corpo- 
ration. In handling the affairs of any large private 
corporation, human experience has demonstrated it 
to be an absolute necessity, that administration 
must be single headed; but that the single adminis- 
trative head must be supervised — and controlled 
— by a deliberative body; by some kind of execu- 
tive committee; by a comparatively small body of 
men, specially selected by the individual members 
of the corporation, for the work of supreme super- 
vision and control. 

The work of administration, of execution, requires 
that men work under single heads. Even at the 
head of each little "gang" of day laborers there 
must be a single foreman. At the head of each 
administrative office and department there must 
be some one man, who will be the head of that 
office or department, responsible for its operation. 
Over all the different departments, combined, there 
must be a single responsible administrative head, 
a "superintendent," a "president," a chief execu- 
tive, under one or another name. Finally, over 
this single administrative head, this chief executive, 
there must be an executive committee, a board of 
directors, a deUberative body of some kind, specially 
charged with the work of supervision and control. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 27 

This form of organization has been found to be 
absolutely necessary in order to secure administra- 
tive eflBciency, in all large private affairs. It has 
been universally adopted in the administration of 
the affairs of all large private corporations. It will 
be quite as serviceable, and it is quite as necessary, 
in the administration of the public affairs, — of 
every large municipal corporation. 

There is, however, one essential difference be- 
tween the two situations. 

In the private business corporation the busi- 
ness is of a single kind, of a comparatively simple 
character, involving the interests of a compara- 
tively small number of persons. Moreover, the 
directors, or members of the executive commit- 
tee, are usually large owners in the property or 
business to be managed. For that reason it does 
no great harm, if those directors are — as matter 
of form — selected at an annual election by the 
shareholders. Moreover, the shareholders are gen- 
erally able to tell with comparative ease, by an 
examination of the annual accounts, and by the 
size of the dividends, whether or not their property 
has been well managed. They are, therefore, in 
general, well able to form an intelligent judgment as 
to whether or not they need a change of directors. 

In a large modern political community, how- 



28 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

ever, the number of persons interested, and the 
interests involved, are extremely large and com- 
plex. Their magnitude, and diversity, far tran- 
scend those concerned in any private business. The 
wise and efficient handling of those largb public 
interests requires our ablest men; and those men 
must have the training that comes from large ex- 
perience; an experience far beyond any that can be 
acquired in any short term of years. 

These facts make it an impossibility, in large 
communities, that the individual citizens, who cor- 
respond to the shareholders in the private corpora- 
tion, should be able to pass an intelligent judg- 
ment on the conduct of their public affairs. The 
citizens have neither the time, nor the opportunity, 
to get the necessary knowledge. Under a proper 
form of election machinery, the citizens constitute, 
in my belief, the best available agency for the work 
of original selection — of the directors, who are to 
supervise each people's public affairs. But private 
citizens cannot have the time, or the knowledge, to 
enable them to form an intelligent judgment on 
the quality of the work of those directors, after 
those directors have once been selected. Conse- 
quently, the system of annual elections, or elec- 
tions for short terms of years, which serves well 
enough in private business corporations, is quite 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 29 

out of place, and will certainly fail to give good 
results, in the government of large communities. 
]\Iorcover, we have already seen, that the inevit- 
able result of any system of annual elections, when 
applied to the selection of the public officials of 
our large communities, is the election machine- 
But here we face the most difficult feature in our 
problem. Under a democratic government, we must 
in some way secure due responsibility to " tlie 
people." In some way, too, we must secure the 
selection of able and upright men for the work 
of our different governmental organizations, local, 
state, and national. Above all things, it is essen- 
tial that we should have the right men at the 
head. The selection of the men below, of the rank 
and file, is comparatively unimportant. It is the 
men at the head, on whom we must depend for 
results, in all our governmental organizations. It is 
at the government's head, that we must have men 
of exceptional capacity, with the thorough training 
for their official work which can come only from 
experience. Any government, which is to do its 
Vvork rightly, in any large community, must be a 
thing very different from government by ordinary 
average untrained citizens, under any conceivable 
system of rotation in office. This large and intri- 
cate work, of managing large public affairs, demands 



30 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

the ablest men that the community can furnish; 
and those men, when once chosen, must not be 
continually changing, but must keep their places so 
long as they are able to do their work efficiently. 
Only when they become inefficient, should new men 
be put in their places. Nothing can be devised, 
which is so certain to destroy the efficiency of any 
large working organization, as frequent changes in 
its members. Especially, any high degree of effi- 
ciency is an impossibility, under any system of fre- 
quent periodic changes in the men at the head. 
Such a system is one of periodic decapitation. 

But how is it to be accomphshed, as an actual 
practical fact, that we shall have public work done 
by a body of men selected by reason of their fit- 
ness for their work, men of special training, and 
large experience? In short, how are we to get a 
sound system of democratic organization ? 

In seeking the answer to this question, we shall 
find that our own experience in the development 
of democratic institutions has now established cer- 
tain political laws; and if we wish to make demo- 
cratic institutions a practical success, we must fol- 
low those laws. 

Moreover, if anything has been made clear by 
our study up to this point, it is that any substan- 
tial improvement in our existing political institu- 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 31 

tions must provide for a large reduction of the 
volume, and intricacy, of our election work; that 
it must put an end to the periodic permanence of 
that work; and that it must at the same time pro- 
vide some simple, inexpensive, workable process of 
popular election, whereby each separate political 
community can make its own free choice, of the 
men who are to have the supreme control of its 
public affairs. 

Bearing these things in mind, let us now consider 
some of the political laws, as to the development 
of democratic institutions, which have been ascer- 
tained by our experience of the last hundred years. 

The first of these laws is this: — 



I. ADMINISTRATION MUST BE SINGLE HEADED. 

It need hardly be said, that every chief execu- 
tive, every head of the administrative forces of a 
community, must himself be under constant super- 
vision, and complete control. Moreover, under any 
form of government that can be termed democratic, 
the entire administrative force of the community, 
through its single head, must be, directly or indi- 
rectly, under the control of " the people." As has 
already been seen, the chief practical defect of our 
present political system is, that the supreme con- 



32 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

trol of public officials and public affairs is not now 
in the hands of the people, but is in the hands of 
the machine politicians. Indeed, the prime essen- 
tial of organized democracy is, the securing, in a 
simple practical effective form, the control of pub- 
lic affairs by the people — by the whole people — 
acting as a unit, as a single political organism. 

Subject to such control by the people, however, 
the first law of organized democracy is, that ad- 
ministration must be single headed. 

That means, that every administrative office, 
or department, must have a single head; that it 
must be under the full control of some single man, 
who shall individually be held responsible for the 
efficiency of that office, or department. 

In order to accomplish that result, he must have 
the selection, and the control, of his subordinates. 
Control — of his subordinates — can be secured 
only by vesting in him the power of removal — of 
those subordinates. Then, too, in order to secure 
his own efficiency, he must, in his turn, be subject 
to removal, at any time, by his immediate official 
superior, for any cause which prevents his effective 
discharge of his official duty. 

It also means, that the chief executive, in every 
government, in the government of every city, state, 
and the nation, shall be held individually respon- 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 33 

sible for the efficiency of all the administrative de- 
partments and offices under him; that, in order to 
secure such efficiency, he must have the appoint- 
ment — and removal — of all his heads of depart- 
ments; that, in order to secure his own efficiency, 
to enforce his responsibility, he shall himself be 
subject to removal, at any time, by the best avail- 
able superior power; not merely for a crime, or a 
distinct violation of law; but for any cause, which 
makes him at the time unable to properly dis- 
charge his official duty; for physical or mental dis- 
ability; for fatal defects in administrative tempera- 
ment; for obstinacy; in short — for any reason 
which makes his removal at any time necessary for 
the complete protection of pubUc interests. 

It is easily seen, that single-headed administra- 
tion, in this form, giving to each head of an office 
or department the selection of his subordinates, 
and to the chief executive the selection of all his 
heads of departments, will at once remove one of 
the chief causes of the existence of the election 
machine. It will at once sweep away a large part 
of its work. It will remove the greater part of 
the prizes, which are now to be won by success in 
carrying our annual elections. The chief fact, to- 
day, which makes the volume of our election work 
so vast, is, that we use the process of popular elec- 



34 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

tion for so large a number of subordinate admin- 
istrative offices, in our state and local governments; 
and, in addition, we use tlie process at short fixed 
periods. In the national government, indeed, we 
use the process of election only for the President 
and the members of our national legislature. That 
is reasonable. The use of the process to that ex- 
tent rests on a basis of sound sense. But in our 
state and local governments, besides using tlie pro- 
cess for tlie selection of our chief executives, and 
the members of our different legislative bodies, we 
also use it for the selection of a large number of 
administrative subordinates. That is one of the 
chief causes of the present large volume of our elec- 
tion work. That, too, is the cause of the large 
number of periodic vacancies, which constitute the 
prizes, to be won at each of these annual election 
campaigns. 

It is evident, then, that the adoption of single- 
headed administration, if it had no other effect, 
would at once eradicate one of the chief evils in our 
present pohtical system. It would have the imme- 
diate effect, of cutting down the number of elective 
offices; consequently of cutting down the volume 
of election work. To that extent, it would take 
away the inducements, and the occupation, of the 
professional politicians. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 35 

But single-headed administration will be found 
to justify itself on every reasonable ground. 

Every man, who has had any considerable ex- 
perience in active practical affairs, is well aware, 
that the only administrative responsibility, which 
has any practical value, is the responsibility of sin- 
gle men. The responsibility of more men than 
one, even with small numbers, is worth little. The 
responsibility of men in large numbers is worth 
nothing. 

When, then, we talk of the administrative re- 
sponsibility of one of our large political "parties," 
with its large numbers, and shifting personalities, 
we talk of responsibility which has no practical 
value; which has, indeed, no practical existence. 
We might almost as well talk of the responsibility 
of a swarm of bees. 

We may lay it down as a universal political law, 
that the division of power means the division of 
responsibility; and the division of responsibility 
means its destruction. 

Conversely, we may lay it down as the same 
political law, in another form, that the conserva- 
tion of responsibility requires its concentration; 
and the concentration of responsibility means the 
concentration of power. 

Furthermore, there is only one way possible, by 



36 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

which to enforce administrative responsibility; and 
that is, by giving to every administrative head the 
selection, and the removal, of his subordinates. 

The theory of our present form of "government 
by the people" is, that administrative responsi- 
bihty is to be enforced by "the people," through 
the use of the process of popular election, at short 
fixed terms, by the entire body of citizens in mass, 
as to large numbers of officials in mass. It is an 
attempt to enforce responsibility — of public offi- 
cials in mass, to the citizens in mass. It is the very 
quintessence of the attempt at mass rule. 

Such an attempt inevitably results in the utter 
destruction — of administrative responsibility, and 
administrative efficiency. It is fundamentally and 
fatally vicious. Every system of government, that 
has ever been framed on that principle, has had 
the same result. No other is possible. 

In ancient times, the old Romans carried the 
system of divided responsibility to an absurd ex- 
treme, when they gave the command of their 
armies to one consul on one day, to the other 
consul on the next. 

In modern times, "parliamentary government," 
as it is termed, has developed official responsibil- 
ity in a still more remarkable, and grotesque form; 
that of responsibility of the heads of administrative 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 37 

departments, termed a "ministry," for legislation. 
Under what is termed "parliamentary govern- 
ment," the practice is, that the heads of admin- 
istrative departments, collectively, lose their ad- 
ministrative positions, not for failures in adminis- 
tration, but for a failure on the part of themselves 
and their followers to carry some measure of legis- 
lation. At times, the resignation of some single 
minister, or even of the whole of a ministry, may 
be enforced for reasons which concern adminis- 
tration. But the regular practice is, that an entire 
ministry resigns from their offices of administra- 
tion, by reason of a failure to carry some measure 
of legislation. We need go no further, to find the 
cause of the universally conceded administrative in- 
efficiency of the British government. Administra- 
tive responsibility, in any correct sense of the term, 
has no existence. The heads of administrative de- 
partments are compelled — to give their time and 
best efforts to work in the House of Commons; to 
keeping a majority in the House, not to the affairs of 
the Army, the Navy, or the administrative oflBces 
of which they purport to be the heads. Either 
work alone, the work of legislation or administra- 
tion, will tax to the utmost the powers of any one 
man. The result is, that neither work is done well. 
No single minister is responsible for any one thing. 



38 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

No single minister gives his time, and energies, to 
one thing. No single minister is judged separately, 
for liis indi^ddual performance, of any one class of 
work. The result is, that the absence of individual 
responsibihty works the destruction of administra- 
tive efficiency. 

Administrative efficiency can be secured in only 
one way; that is, through a system of individual 
responsibility, for indi^ddual performance, in the 
work of administration alone; by having all admin- 
istrative officials selected and removed separately, 
by reason of their success or failure in giving good 
administrative results. 

Thereupon it follows, that the selection, and the 
removal, of all administrative officials must be made 
by some man, or body of men, who will have full 
and accurate knowledge of the quality of their 
official work. 

That being so, the selection and removal of all 
administrative officials must be made by their im- 
mediate official superior. He is the only person, 
who can have the needed knowledge. Moreover, 
he will be led by his own personal interests to use 
his power of selection and removal, with a view to 
serving the interests of the public. For it is on the 
fitness and efficiency of his own subordinates, that 
he must depend for his own administrative success. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 39 

No doubt, there will always be the possibility, that 
the power in his hands may be used unwisely. But 
a wise use of that power in any other hands will be 
an impossibility. 

Nor is there the possibility, that any man should 
get the most earnest and efficient work from his 
subordinates, unless they know that he has the 
power to discharge them at any time, for miscon- 
duct or inefficiency. What would become of the 
business of any one of our large private corpo- 
rations, if employees were independent of their 
employers; if they could keep their situations for 
four years, or for one year, whether they did their 
work well or ill ? Human nature is the same, in both 
public and private affairs. The term system, which 
practically allows our public servants to keep their 
official positions for a fixed term of years, with 
practically no regard to the quaUty of their work, 
or their fitness for their places, is flatly in defiance 
of all the principles of sound administration, and 
the dictates of common sense. Such a system — 
to an absolute certainty — destroys all possibility 
of high administrative efficiency. It would very 
quickly ruin any private business. Its effects on 
our public business are quite as bad, as they would 
be on the business of any private individual. The 
reason why the system does not work the ruin of 



40 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

our public business is, that the resources of the 
entire people are so vast. The mere fact, however, 
that, with our vast wealth, and our peculiar condi- 
tions, we have been able thus far to endure the sys- 
tem, does not alter its nature. Nor does it throw 
doubt on the soundness of the conclusion, that 
the only way to secure administrative efficiency, in 
either public or private affairs, is to put every ad- 
ministrative official under the control of some sin- 
gle superior; and give to that superior the power 
of selecting men whom he judges fit for the work 
they are to do, and discharging those men when 
they show themselves to be unfit for that work. 

These points are so elementary, and any other 
doctrine so flatly contradicts the teachings of simple 
common sense, that it would seem almost impos- 
sible that a system of fixed official terms for admin- 
istrative officials should ever have been adopted. 

The reason for its adoption is to be found in 
the fact, that democratic governments have thus 
far been regarded, rather as protections against 
tyranny, than as organizations for the efficient 
transaction of public work. The fundamental fact 
has been ignored, that every kind of work, public 
as well as private, requires special qualities and 
special training; especially the training that comes 
only from experience. All these considerations have 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 41 

been practically ignored, in the framing of our pre- 
sent system of government; and, for that matter, 
in the framing of nearly every government that has 
ever yet existed, democratic or hereditary. 

But another fact, even more importa,nt, has been 
disregarded in framing our present political sys- 
tem. It is tliis. In order to ensure eflScient work, 
work of the highest order, the workman must have 
before him the possibility of a career for life, 
in which he can make for himself a reputation; 
with the possibility of rising to the top of his pro- 
fession, if he shows himself sufficiently deserving. 
He must be sure of permanent employment, sub- 
ject, of course, to the condition of honesty and effi- 
ciency. He must be paid reasonably in money, but 
largely and liberally in the possibility of an honor- 
able reputation. Work of the highest order is paid 
for, in general, not excessively in money, but largely 
in reputation. In this respect, our public service, 
rightly organized, can have an immeasurable ad- 
vantage over any private employment. We can, if 
we will, make it pay sufficiently well in money; 
but in reputation — far better than any private 
calling. In other words, we have it in our power, 
to a degree impossible for any private employer, 
so to deal with our public servants, as to make it 
for their own selfish individual interest to give us 



42 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

the highest kind of work. But that can be done 
only in one way, only by one metliod; and tliat is, 
by abolishing the term system; by gi\'iug our pub- 
lic service pei-manence; by making the rewai-ds of 
the ser\ace depend on fidelity and efficiency; by judg- 
mg each man separately: by making his continuance 
in the service, and liis advancement in the service, 
depend on the quality of his indi^'idual work; by 
removing from the se^^^ce the faithless and meffi- 
cicnt; by weeding them out singly, whenever their 
inefficiency is discovered; by then putting new men 
in their places, and testing tliose new men at their 
work; in short, by selectuig men, remo\'ing tJiem, 
and promoting them, separately, according to the 
quality of their indi\ndual performance. 

Above all, their tenure of their offices must not 
depend on success in carrjning popular elections. 

In other words, we must abolish the system of 
tenure by election, and substitute in its place the 
system of tenure during good behavior. 

There is, moreover, another consideration, which 
beai-s on this same point. 

If any chief executive is to be held responsible 
for the efficiency of the entire body of the adminis- 
trative force under him. justice to liim. and a due 
regard for tlie possibility of liis giving the people 
efficient service, absolutely i-equu"e, that the selection. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 43 

and control, of his heads of departments should be 
in his individual hands. Tliosc department heads 
must not only be able and competent men; but 
they must be men who can work with, and under, 
him. We have no right to hold a man responsible 
for results, unless we give him a free hand in the 
selection of his tools, his subordinates. Moreover, 
he must have the control of those subordinates after 
they are selected; and they must know that he has 
it. It is not intended, that, in the use of that con- 
trol, he must be absolutely free from all regulation 
and restriction. But his control of his subordinates 
must be full and complete. If he is held to a strict 
accountability, his own personal interests will com- 
pel him to use that control as wisely as he can. For, 
if he selects and removes his subordinates for rea- 
sons other than their eflSciency or inefficiency, he 
will thereby prevent his own official success. There- 
by, in time, he will compel his own removal. 

In short, from whatever point of view we con- 
sider the question, we shall jBnd, that concentra- 
tion of power is the essential condition, of both 
administrative efficiency, and administrative re- 
sponsibility. 

The framers of democratic governments hav^e 
generally been distrustful of the concentration of 
power in single hands. Their fear has been, that 



44 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

the concentration of power would increase the 
danger of its abuse. 

Directly the reverse is the fact. Our main de- 
pendence for enforcing efficiency and responsi- 
bility, with every administrative official, must al- 
ways be the supervision and control of his imme- 
diate superior. 

But with the few administrative chiefs, the few 
men at the head, there will be the operation of 
another force, that of pubUc opinion. That force it 
is important to utilize — within its proper limits — 
though we can depend on it only as an occasional 
auxiliary, not as the power of permanent control. 

Public opinion, in order to have substantial ef- 
fect, must have concentration. It must be concen- 
trated on single men. If any public official wishes 
to make a wrong use of his power, he is much less 
likely to do so, if he knows that he must face pub- 
lic opinion alone; if he knows that the disapproval 
or wrath of the public is to be poured, the whole of 
it, on his single soUtary head. Here, again, we touch 
the essential weakness of any attempt to enforce 
the responsibility of a "party," or of any group of 
professional politicians. In any such attempt, the 
force of public opinion scatters. It wastes itself by 
diffusion. It strikes so many, that it hurts none. 
More than that, the men who are really the efficient 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 45 

causes of corrupt official action, keep in the back- 
ground. They are the " power behind the throne," 
the uncrowned kings; the political leaders, behind 
the scenes, who pull the wires and move the pup- 
pets. If, however, there is some single department 
head, or some single chief executive, who has am- 
ple power — to prevent, or remedy, abuses, who 
can at once discipline, or remove, corrupt or in- 
efficient subordinates, on whom the community can 
at once put its finger, on whom responsibiUty rests 
with reason, who, in his turn, can be immediately 
removed by his own single superior, then public 
opinion becomes a force that can have some prac- 
tical effect; that can have some real power in pro- 
ducing practical results. But in order to give to 
the lightning of pubUc opinion any real power, it 
must be able to strike some single head. 

Here, again, we encounter the fundamental law, 
that the conservation of responsibility requires its 
concentration; and the concentration of respon- 
sibiUty requires the concentration of power. 

At every turn, whenever we carefully study the 
practical operation of administrative forces and 
administrative bodies, we shall find ourselves con- 
fronted with the absolute necessity, that every ad- 
ministrative body must be single-headed. 

But when we come to the case of the cliief executive. 



46 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

what are we to do then ? What security are we to 
have for oflBcial efficiency and integrity, on his part ? 

Here, too, we shall find, that the only practical 
way of enforcing responsibihty on the part of a 
chief executive, a mayor, a governor, or a president, 
is to abolish the term tenure; to limit his official 
duty to the work of administration; to hold him 
individually responsible for the efficiency of the en- 
tire administrative force under him; to that end, 
to give him full control of all the administra- 
tive departments, through their official heads; and 
then, to have him removable, by a representa- 
tive popular assembly; not at the end of a term of 
years, but at any time; not merely for crimes and 
misdemeanors, but for failure to give good admin- 
istrative results; whether by reason of a direct 
violation of law, for physical or mental incapacity, 
or for mere inefficiency; in short, for any reason, 
which causes his removal to be at any time de- 
manded by public interests. 

In other words, the term system must be abol- 
ished, as to executive heads, as well as subordinates ; 
and single-headed administration must be adopted 
throughout the entire administrative body, from the 
bottom to the top. 

Here, no doubt, we find ourselves opposed by 
a prevailing popular belief, that governmental con- 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 47 

trol by the people must be in the form of control 
by the entire mass of citizens, through the process 
of periodic popular election by the entire mass of 
citizens; in short, through some form of mass rule. 

Mass responsibility, responsibility of officials in 
mass, to the citizens in mass, for conduct in mass, 
enforced by periodic popular elections, so called, 
once in one year, in two years, in four years, or in 
any number of years, is a delusion. It has been the 
cause of failure, in every attempt yet made at the 
formation of democratic institutions. It has been 
the primal cause of the primal curse, in all pre- 
vious efforts to establish democracy. 

Control by the people, supremacy of the people, 
in a practical effective form, is the essence of de- 
mocratic government. The administrative forces, in 
a democracy, must be made responsible to the peo- 
ple, in some simple effective method. Such respon- 
sibility we do not now have. As we have already 
seen, the destruction of real responsibility to the peo- 
ple is the chief defect of our present political system. 

Democratic organization will have for its chief 
end, the providing some really efficient means for 
enforcing such administrative responsibility. 

What shall that means be ? 

That brings us to the statement of our second 
political law. 



cMu; VMvn ni-Moru vrv 



II, TUK ORGAN or srruvMv cotsvuov in tuk 
r>0PY roi.vvK^ mvsv i;f iuk rorvi au 

ASSKMUl \. 

PomvHT;uv has i^xMii'niUv Ihvu nssiimoJ to bo n 
form of gvnonmunit, whori'bv is sixnuwl ihc supivm- 
jvi-v of tho [H\>plo's >viU. 

Init with n jw^plr. as with an individual, Iho will 
sluniUl Ih' mulor Ihc (.xnitn^l o\ ihc t.hinkiu;;' l"ai-ult_v 
— vxf tho ivason. tho jiulginont. C'v^usix^iuMitly. lU^ 
luivniov. if it is to Iv a ivallv wise form of >;>norn- 
liunit. should do somcthiuiV lUinv than si\nnv t.lu' su- 
prtMuaov of thi' jw^plo's will. It should si\nnv tho 
«.\Mitrv>l of tho jw^plo's will bv tho ^w^plo's jnds^inont. 

This suj^n^maov of tho jwij^lo's ind;nnont. as t.ho 
j\n\ or of tinal supivmo i\nit.i\il, will bo found to 
bt> a rt>suU nnito pniotionblo. quito att.iinablo bv 
human insfilulions; a Ihiuj;; ijuilo [wssiblo of aotual 
tuwnnplishmont : ;nul that, t^w bv tho uso oi }\> 
ht.ioal niaohiuorv ahvad.y woll pun od by thi^ tosts 
o( aotual o\j\n-i\nont. 

riio pnutioal ini^H^rtniux" i^f this |\Mnt will Iv 
nu\t\^ apjviixnit. whon wo Ivnr in mind tho v\mi 
ehi:^i>n nliwuly u\'ulu\l. that publii- admit\islm- 
tion. Uko privnto. uuist Iv sin;;li^hoadi\l. Tho chief 
OMHnitivo of n la.ri^^^ ixnuunmity will wiold irn^at 
j\nvor. c\>usi\juoiiUy. if j^norumonl is to bo ix^ally 



OIUJANIZKI) DKMOCIIACY 41) 

(IriiM)criilif, if \vf MIT to liiivc u ^riillilur "^^ovcrii- 
iiK-iil liy tli<- pfoplr." this our liiuti at l\n' liruil 
of H rniiiiiiiiiiily'.s nilirr udiiiiiiist.nilivc fon-r. this 
rhirf <-\rnitivr, iiinsi \>r plnml in soiiir way iiiulcr 
niiitiiiiioiis rlFritivr ((iiitrol; iiiiiirr (oiitrol hy tho 
whole |)(H)|)1<'. lhitikiiif{. jutlf^iiif^, uiul uctiii^. us one 
off^uiUMin; in Much u way us to iusun*, aud rurorco, 
lhoi-ou|.di couiplrtr n-s|)onsil)ihty to the people. 

How is that, to l>r atroiiiph.she*! P How is it. to 
Ih'. iua«l(^ an aeliial pra<-tieal result., in the i-ri.Miliir 
cv<Ty-«lay workinf^ of a governiut;nlP 

Mvidenlly, Jis has nnw heen deiuoustmted l»y 
tllC OXpeii<-uee ol' <-v«'iy people which has thus I'ar 
made attempts at the development, of dcniocniti(? 
institutions, il cannot. t>e accom|>lished \>y any Um'ui 
system, by any sysUmi (jf p(;riodi(^ «.leclion.s liy llio 
cili/ens in mass. 

We nnist, then, nuike some other evprrimeni, 
on .sonu* other foini<lation. 

(iovernm(*nt. in lar^i;)- connnunities, in all its 
l)ranches, nuisl he " re|)re.senta.livo;'* that is, it 
nuist he hy lueu in some way Mp«'cially selected, 
who will act for the entin* comnnmily. In small 
conunimities, in coimtry h>wns ami vilhi^rs, the 
.selection of their chief puhlie wTvants, togetlur 
with their ;.M>neral supervision /md control, shoidd 
be in the hands of tht? citi/.ens them.selves, mcirl- 



50 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

ing and acting as one body in their own persons. 
In large communities, however, all public func- 
tions must be in the hands of "representatives;" 
of men who will "represent" the people in action; 
who will be their agents. In the act of original se- 
lection, through some simple practical process of 
popular election, each citizen should have his sin- 
gle voice. The form and operation of that process 
will be the subject of our later study. But in any 
large community, it is a mere impossibility — for 
the individual citizen to take part in the work of 
supervision and control; an impossibility as com- 
plete, as it is for him to take part in the daily 
routine work of administration. Having taken his 
part in the work of original selection, of the men at 
the government's head, there the functions of the 
citizen must end. He cannot possibly have the time, 
or the knowledge, to take part in the work of su- 
preme supervision and control. 

This position does, no doubt, involve a recon- 
struction of current theories as to democratic govern- 
ment. It will, however, be seen to be fundamental, 
and essential. Its soundness will be found to be 
fully established, if we give the subject a careful 
consideration, in the light of the lessons to be learned 
from our own large experience in the last century. 

Let us now give it that consideration. And at 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 51 

each turn of this study, in view of its large impor- 
tance, and its many-sided practical relations, the 
forbearance of the reader nmst be asked, if there 
seem to be somewhat of needless repetition. 

Each body politic, each political community, 
each village, town, city, state, and the nation, is 
a distinct human organism. Taken together, in 
combination, they constitute a single, more com- 
plex, organism. But each one of them is, at the 
same time, a distinct organism in itself. Each must 
have its own distinct organic life. 

Especially, every body politic must have for its 
power of supreme control its own brain; its own 
separate organ, whereby it can form, and utter, its 
own unified common judgment, and its own unified 
common will. The body politic is not to be gov- 
erned by its different cells, organs, and members, 
taken collectively; acting, or attempting to act, in 
mass. In the small rural community, the little 
country town, we have something analogous to the 
plant or animal of a single cell; a single organism, 
which serves continuously and cotemporaneously, for 
the performance of all the different bodily func- 
tions; those of absorption, digestion, locomotion, 
at one and the same time. But in the larger and 
more complex political bodies, we must have the 
differentiation of functions, with a corresponding 



52 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

differentiation of organs. The larger the commu- 
nity, the more varied and complex must be that 
differentiation. That is the order of nature. 

Especially, in the case of large communities, is 
it all the more essential, that we should have a 
separate organ for the work of supreme control; 
an organ for the people's deUberations; an organ 
for forming and uttering the people's thought; a 
body of men of superior capacity, carefully se- 
lected; men of large knowledge, and large expe- 
rience in public affairs; who shall constitute the 
community's brain; which wiU supervise and 
control all the other organs and members of the 
body poUtic. As already stated, the attempt to vest 
the general control of pubhc affairs in the citizens 
in their own persons, is quite practicable, in the 
case of small conmaunities, in small towns and vil- 
lages. When, however, we are confronted with the 
different conditions, which exist in our large modern 
conamunities, in our large cities and states, such 
control becomes an impossibility. Public ques- 
tions then become larger, and more complex. Their 
decision demands larger knowledge, wider expe- 
rience, more thorough and continuous thought. 
We laymen, however intelligent or well educated 
we may be, cannot have the knowledge, or the time, 
to master the facts — of important public ques- 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 53 

tions. In our large modem communities, it is this 
work of final supervision and control, far more 
than the work of administration, wliich demands 
men of exceptional capacity, and exceptional ex- 
perience. It is this work of supreme control, above 
all others, which is quite beyond the capacities of 
the collective mass of citizens; which must be in 
the hands of men carefully selected, who will con- 
stitute a distinct separate organ in the body politic, 
the people's brain. 

This conclusion will be found all the more neces- 
sary, and unavoidable, when we consider another 
point to which we have already made allusion. 

The essential idea, which lies at the foundation 
of the current notions of democracy, it is said, is 
that of the supremacy of the people's will. It is 
the people's will, it is said, which must be the su- 
preme power in the state. 

So it should. 

But we must also bear in mind the vital neces- 
sity, as has been already stated, that the people's 
will should be guided — and governed — by the 
people's judgment. It will not answer for a people, 
any more than for an individual, to be the victim 
of its whims and caprices; or even of its hasty 
ill-considered impressions and opinions; formed 
without knowledge, or with insufficient knowledge; 



54 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

without deliberation, or with insufficient dehbera- 
tion. The interests of the entire people are larger, 
and more complex, than those of any individual. 
They involve the consideration of larger and more 
complex collections of facts. All the more vital 
and essential is it, that all large questions of public 
poUcy should be decided after the most mature de- 
liberation, by the people's best thought, by its best 
judgment. It is not enough, that the action of the 
body politic should be the expression of mere hasty 
ill-considered volition, even on the part of the en- 
tire mass of the individual citizens. 

Nor will it serve our needs, to have public af- 
fairs regulated by the judgment of ordinary, aver- 
age men. These large public questions must be 
handled by men of exceptional ability, and excep- 
tional experience. Consequently, the chief point 
to be kept in view, in working out the problem of 
democratic organization, is to devise some organ, 
some organ that is practicable, and available, which 
shall be the body politic's brain; the organ for 
forming and uttering the people's wisest judgment. 

Here is the point of fundamental importance in 
our study. Here we touch the inherent weakness 
of any and every system of hereditary govern- 
ment; government by hereditary kings, or hered- 
itary classes. Hereditary government, under what- 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 55 

ever form it may exist, is not, and never can be, 
government by the people's brain. Under any and 
every system of hereditary government, the men 
at the head of the state are selected by birth, and 
not worth; by reason of the fact, that they are the 
descendants, actual or putative, of their ancestors. 
They hold the high places in the state, as property, 
by inheritance, instead of being selected for those 
places, by the people, on their own merits, to be 
the people's servants. 

Democracy, on the contrary, in its fully devel- 
oped form, implies as its chief essential, that the 
men at the head of the state, the men on whom 
the community must depend for the wise hand- 
ling of large and complex public questions, shall 
be a body of exceptional men; selected by reason 
of their ability in affairs; who will constitute the 
organ for forming and uttering the people's best 
thought, the people's wisest judgment; being se- 
lected — by the people — for that very work. The 
people's thought, in large communities, must be by 
the people's brain. The people's brain must be a 
separate organ, a separate body of men, composed 
of the people's best fibre, specially selected — by 
a rational process of popular election. 

What light do we get from the previous history of 
democratic institutions, as to this point — the pro- 



56 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

viding this special organ — for forming and utter- 
ing a people's judgment, and a people's will? 

The historic tendency, in the development of 
democratic institutions, has been, thus far, steadily 
in the direction of the supremacy of the popular 
assembly, of either one or two chambers; as it 
seems to me, of one chamber, as the power of su- 
preme control in the state. 

The principal reason, for the existence, and use, 
of the popular assembly, in democratic institutions, 
has hitherto generally been assumed to be its neces- 
sity, as a bulwark for the rights and liberties of the 
citizen, and the people, against the people's rulers. 

This necessity was, in former times, a real ne- 
cessity. It was, no doubt, the chief reason, and a 
sufficient reason, for the existence of the popular 
assembly, in times past, under the rule of heredi- 
tary kings. 

But that reason ceases to have any considerable 
importance, when a people has once finally achieved 
its liberty; when it has finally overthrown the sys- 
tem of inheritance in matters of state control ; when 
it has finally conquered, as every civilized people 
must, and will, the right to frame its own politi- 
cal institutions, on its own free judgment. Then it 
can consider the popular assembly from a different 
standpoint; as the means of accomplishing a dif- 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 57 

ferent political purpose; as the organ for forming 
and uttering the people's wisest thought, on pub- 
lic questions of large importance; as the organ for 
concentrating on single questions the united thought 
of the entire people; giving to that thought unity; 
and supporting it by the concentrated forces of the 
entire community. 

The question here to be considered is : whether it 
is not possible — and practicable — for the popular 
assembly to accomplish this result just stated, in 
the regular daily worldng of a democratic govern- 
ment ? Has not the popular assembly here its real 
function, in a system of genuine democracy ? 

In order to answer that question, it will be neces- 
sary to consider the actual operative processes of 
the popular assembly, in what may be termed its 
natural normal form. 

Here we are not remitted to conjecture, or theory, 
or to any kind of doubt, or uncertainty, by reason 
of the absence of known facts. The popular as- 
sembly, in one or another form, with its members 
selected in one or another way, is not a thing new, 
or untried. Its existence began in times of remote 
antiquity. It has been used, to a greater or less 
extent, in many forms, by many peoples. It has 
always been used, though roughly and crudely, for 
the purpose now under consideration, the forming 



58 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

and uttering of a people's joint common thought; 
although that purpose may not at the time have 
been pubhcly proclaimed, or fully appreciated. Its 
practical processes, and its practical results, are well 
ascertained. 

What are they ? 

They are three: Conference, deliberation, and 
agreement. They are not, or should not be, pro- 
cesses of antagonism, and contest. 

In any private or public assembly, composed of 
a reasonable number of reasonable men, having 
united common interests, met for joint action on 
those interests, those men begin their action with 
conference; with a bringing together of the differ- 
ent individual views, of the different individual 
men, as to the common course of action, on which 
they must in the end agree, — and unite. Next, they 
discuss — shake out, and weigh — those different in- 
dividual views. In other words, they deliberate. In 
the last stage of their action, they come to an agree- 
ment, as to the common course of action, which they 
deem the best suited to accomplish the common pur- 
pose, and protect the common interests. Through- 
out the entire operation, from the beginning to the 
end, the process should be, and easily can be, one of 
cooperation; of men working together; not a pro- 
cess of antagonism, of contest. Different individ- 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 59 

iials will have different indi^^dual views. They 
will express those views. Often it will happen, 
that the expression of those views will be accom- 
panied with more or less warmth of feeling. But 
in the end, reasonable men, who have common 
interests, will almost invariably come to an agree- 
ment, as to a united common course of action, not- 
withstanding their original differences of opinion. 
Oftentimes, they will retain to the end their dif- 
ferences of opinion, yet will nevertheless agree on 
their common course of action. Oftentimes, too, 
they will change their opinions. Sensible men well 
understand, that, in the end, in order to accom- 
plish any practical result, they must come to an 
agreement. Agreement must be their aim and pur- 
pose, from the beginning. Discussion, with sen- 
sible men, is a process of agreement. It involves, 
no doubt, a contest between ideas. But it should 
not, and need not, be a contest between men. The 
men — whatever they may think, are, or should be, 
working in harmony. They know, that that is 
the only way to work with efficiency. Indeed, it is 
the only way in which they can work at all; that 
is, it is the only way in which they can accom- 
plish results. Free democratic government should 
not consist in continuous periodic contests between 
men — for places and votes. If a contest at aU, it 



60 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

should be a contest between ideas; a search after 
the truth; after the measures which will best pro- 
tect the interests of tlie largest number. So far as 
concerns men, it should always be a process of co- 
operation. 

" Party government " has been generally assumed 
to be a contest between pohcies; a struggle for the 
victory of one policy over another, in the persons 
of the men who have been believers in those poli- 
cies. That has been the theory. 

In fact, however, and in practice, "party gov- 
ernment" has almost always been — in the main — 
a perpetual periodic contest for place; between 
organizations of professional politicians, many of 
whom may have sincerely beUeved in the policies, 
or principles, which they have professed, but whose 
immediate mo'sang purpose has, after all, been tlie 
acquisition of the control of government, largely for 
the promotion of their own personal interests. 

Now, even if we assume, contrary to the fact, 
that an entire community can possibly be divided 
into two or more adverse bodies of men, who really 
hold distinctly diverse political beliefs, on all, or on 
many, important public questions, nevertheless, a 
wise regard for pubHc interests requires, that the 
citizens who compose tliose organizations should 
unite, sliould agree — on the wisest course of com- 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 61 

mon action, notwithstanding their differences of 
belief. Public interests are very imperfectly pro- 
moted, indeed, they are almost invariably injured, 
by these perpetual periodic contests for the offices, 
even if the contestants have sincere differences of 
opinion. Notwithstanding those differences, pubhc 
interests require, that the parties so differing should 
always come to an agreement, as to the common 
course of action. A people should think, and act, 
as a unit, as a single body, as a single organism, 
notwithstanding any differences of opinion, between 
different individuals, or groups of individuals, as to 
policies, or principles. And it is an easy possi- 
bility, if we abolish these perpetual periodic con- 
tests for place, that a people should so unite, on 
such course of combined common action, by the use 
of nature's regular political processes — conference, 
discussion, and agreement. 

The advocates of " party government " so called, 
have generally assumed, that differences of opinion, 
between different individuals, or different groups of 
individuals, necessitate disagreement as to a course 
of action. Quite the reverse is the fact, with reason- 
able men. It is only the small minority of unrea- 
sonable irreconcilables, who always insist on having 
either their own way or none. Sensible men are 
well aware, that their own opinions are not invari- 



62 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

ably certain to be right. They are well aware, that 
their own opinions, even if right, must often yield to 
the opinions of other men ; who, on their part, have 
the same right to hold their opinions. Practical men, 
men of affairs, are well aware, that concession, con- 
cession on all sides, is not only a necessity in order 
to get action, but that it is, in the large majority of 
cases, the surest way of deciding what is really right, 
and wise, in the way of policy. 

Light will be thrown on the point now under 
consideration, if we revert for a moment to the con- 
ditions under which the popular assembly has gen- 
erally come into existence, in the previous develop- 
ment of democratic institutions. 

In the rough rudimentary stages of civilization, 
when public questions are settled by brute force, 
when there is an absence of the rule of law, most 
people take temporary refuge in the one man 
power, in monarchy. Large public questions are 
then comparatively few in number. Society is crude, 
and undeveloped. It lives in a condition of turmoil 
and strife. Public questions are settled by an ap- 
peal to arms; by armies. Armies must be under 
single heads. Popular assemblies are not fitted to 
direct the operations of war. The practical result, 
then, is that in the ages of lawlessness and war, 
men take refuge in monarchy, as the only form of 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 63 

government which is practicable, under then exist- 
ing conditions. 

But as conditions become more settled, as pro- 
perty increases, as social relations become more 
complex, and the need becomes imperative for the 
rule of law, it becomes more and more impossible, 
that any single mind should be equal to the su- 
preme control of the public affairs of any large com- 
munity. According to the ordinary idea, the most 
serious objection to monarchy is, that monarchy 
is a tyranny; that the monarch has a tendency to 
use his power as the head of the state, to serve his 
personal interests, rather than the interests of the 
whole people. And as matter of fact, there is no 
doubt that hereditary lungs in the past have, fre- 
quently, if not generally, used their power with 
little or no regard for the best interests of the peo- 
ples. That fact, however, constitutes by no means 
the most serious practical objection to the institu- 
tion of hereditary monarchy, or to monarchy of any 
kind, as a form of practical political organization, 
at the present day. The vital, fatal, objection to 
monarchy of any kind, as a form of political organi- 
zation at the present day, is to be found in its utter 
mental inadequacy to the work of supreme super- 
vision and control, in any large modern community. 
The work is too much for the brain of any one man, 



64 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

even if he be a Napoleon. "War lords" are now 
an anachronism, by reason of their lack of brain 
power. They have become a political excrescence. 

The same reason is conclusive, against vesting the 
supreme control of the public affairs of any large 
modem community in any hereditary oligarchy. An 
hereditary oligarchy will not give us adequate brain 
power. 

We are led, from sheer necessity, to the use of 
the representative popular assembly, as the organ 
of supreme control in any large modern community, 
if for no other reason, in order to secure adequate 
brain power. Such a body of men may do the work 
imperfectly, inasmuch as they will be human. Es- 
pecially, when jQrst selected, the individual mem- 
bers of such an assembly will show the defects which 
invariably come from the lack of training and ex- 
perience. If, however, the individual members are 
carefully and wisely selected, by reason of their 
capacity for affairs, and are then given time — to 
gain knowledge and experience, if, thereafter they 
are not compelled to curry favor with the popu- 
lace, and are free to devote their combined energies 
to the thorough study of public questions and pub- 
lic interests — they will do the work of supervision 
and control far better than it can be done by any 
other available human agency. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 65 

The higher the stage of civilization reached by 
any community, the more clearly pronounced has 
been the tendency to government by representa- 
tive popular assembly. The reason for that ten- 
dency is to be found in the growing general con- 
viction, as yet somewhat vague and unformed, of 
the inadequacy of any other public organ to the 
large needs of our large modem communities. Gov- 
ernment by popular assembly has not yet reached 
its highest stage of development. But towards that 
form of government the tendencies are clear. By 
no other means, by no other political organism, is 
it now a possibihty to concentrate in a single head 
the political forces of any civiUzed people. 

Still another point is here to be considered. 

However imperfect an organ the popular assem- 
bly may be in its present stage of development, it 
is, even now, the only power, which can ever com- 
mand the confidence of any free modem commun- 
ity. The great mass of citizens, in any free com- 
munity, may be persuaded with comparative ease 
to have a reasonable degree of confidence in a body 
of men, who are the men of their own free choice. 
They will have complete confidence in no other 
public authority. Its supremacy, in the large 
modern community, is therefore inevitable. 

But there is, no doubt, in the minds of many 



66 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

men a deeply seated conviction, that the supreme 
power in the state should not be vested in any single 
authority; that no large power in the state should 
be concentrated in the hands of a single man, or 
body of men; that every power in the state should 
be divided, among different men, or bodies of men ; 
and that democratic government, especially, should 
be government under a system of checks and bal- 
ances. 

Let us examine this idea. 

So far as concerns administration, this idea is 
now well proved to be erroneous. Thoughtful men, 
generally, have come to a realizing sense, that, so 
far as concerns administration, we must have the 
concentration of power in single hands. 

But many men, whose minds have gone as far 
as that, still shrink from taking the next step, to 
the conclusion that the power of final supreme 
control should be vested in any one body of men, 
even in an elective representative popular assem- 
bly. In the minds of such men, such vesting of 
the supreme control in any one body of men 
would mean the establishment of a new kind of 
tyranny. 

We must, however, bring ourselves to compre- 
hend, and realize, that under any and every con- 
ceivable form of government that can be devised. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 67 

the ultimate practical security for able and upright 
public administration must always be found in men ; 
in the calibre, and character, of the men at the gov- 
ernment's head. The only adequate security against 
the abuse of official power is to be found in the 
quality of the men to whom we intrust the power 
of final supreme control. The system of checks 
and balances has been fully tried, and has been 
found wanting. We must use in our public aflFairs 
the same methods which we use in private affairs. 
In private affairs, we place our dependence on 
men. We find no great difficulty in getting men 
who deserve our confidence. At times, that confi- 
dence is misplaced. Nevertheless, it is a well- re- 
cognized principle, that the men at the head of 
every large private enterprise, the men who are re- 
sponsible for results, must have a free hand. They 
must be trusted. In large private affairs, the wisest 
administrators do not resort to the method of the 
distribution of one power among different men, or 
different bodies of men. Such a system results only 
in the destruction of responsibility, and efficiency. 

Here we need not rest on theory. We have the 
teachings of experience in the history of the British 
House of Commons. 

That House, in domestic affairs, is practically 
omnipotent. Its powers are restricted by no con- 



68 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

stitution, written or unwritten. No considerable 
practical evil, or inconvenience, has ever resulted 
from the absence of limitations and restrictions 
on its power. Its supremacy has not resulted in 
tyranny, or abuse. Its supremacy has worked no 
considerable evil result. No authority in the 
state has ever yet been found so worthy of entire 
public confidence as a deliberative assembly, com- 
posed of reputable representative men. Such a 
body of men can be trusted, without restriction 
or reserve, to take wise action on all large ques- 
tions of public interest, if they are only free and 
independent, if they are really supreme. Under 
any form of government, our dependence for the 
wise control of public affairs must be on some 
human agency. No human agency can be trusted 
with that control with so great security, with 
such freedom from danger, as a representative 
popular assembly, the members of which are the 
free choice of the people. As a last resort, under 
any possible form of government, we must de- 
pend on men — on the capacity, the judgment, 
and the honesty — of men. Constitutional re- 
strictions, statutes, rules, and regulations, may 
be multiplied without number. With them, or 
without them, our final dependence must always 
be the wisdom, and integrity of men — of those 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 69 

men, in whose hands we vest the power of su- 
preme control. 

We must recognize that fact, fully and finally. 
We must comprehend, fully and finally, that 
our security for a wise and upright administra- 
tion of public affairs is to be found, not in the 
restriction of power, but in its enlargement; not 
in distrust, but in confidence. 

In short, democratic government means free- 
dom, independence — combined with genuine 
responsibility to the people — throughout the 
entire body politic; for public servants, as well 
as for their employers; for public officials, as 
well as the mass of citizens. Every public ser- 
vant must be carefully selected. Pie must be 
held to constant thorough responsibility, in some 
way which will be really effective. But he must 
have freedom; the same freedom that wise ad- 
ministrators give to their employees in private 
employments. In private employments, we 
trust men. We give them our confidence. We 
find that to be the surest way of making them 
deserve our confidence. There is no atmos- 
phere so certain to make men dishonest and 
inefficient, as the atmosphere of doubt and dis- 
trust. 

Especially, we must abandon the attempt to 



70 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

keep the chief executive under the direct control 
of the citizens in mass, by means of the term 
system. If the term system really did keep that 
control in the hands of the citizens, the case would 
be different. If we, the mass of citizens, were 
capable of exercising that control wisely, the case 
would be different. If we were able even to 
know the time, when it was necessary to exer- 
cise that control at all, the case would be dif- 
ferent. In practice, no one of these things is 
possible. We, the mass of citizens, cannot, by 
any possibility, have that knowledge of the facts, 
which is absolutely necessary, in order merely to 
know the time when it will be wise, and safe, 
to make a change in the person of the chief ex- 
ecutive, who must be the head of the entire ad- 
ministrative force. No body of men can possibly 
have that knowledge, except a body of men who 
are continually in close touch with the daily ad- 
ministration of public affairs. 

In the end, the final security of the individual 
citizen, and of the state, must always depend 
on the power of free thought, and free speech; 
the power which constitutes the foundation of 
free democratic institutions. That is the power, 
which will be the power of supreme control in 
our popular assemblies, if we only give to those 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 71 

assemblies freedom and time. We have been 
placing our dependence on checks and balances, 
on statutes and constitutions. Constitutions 
and statutes are good, in their proper places, 
for their proper purposes. But our final depend- 
ence, for honest and efficient administration, for 
a wise ordering of our public affairs, must al- 
ways be in men; in the men at the head. Chains 
and checks will not meet our needs. If we tie 
men's hands to prevent them from doing wrong, 
we at the same time destroy their power to do 
right. Even if we change the men at the head 
periodically, we are still compelled to trust the 
men who are in high office during their terms. 
During that period, even those men, never the 
men of our own free choice, have to be trusted. 
Under any and every political system, our de- 
pendence for wise and upright administration 
must always be the men at the government's 
head. 

Hitherto — for the time — we have been dis- 
trusting the power of freedom, of free thought, 
and free action, which is, and always must be, 
the power of propulsion, and of control, in every 
free democratic government. 

There is no piece of political machinery, so 
destructive of political freedom, of political free 



72 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

thought, pohtical free speech, and political free 
action, as this term system. Under it, every- 
thing is subordinated to the necessity of carry- 
ing the next election. Every citizen must join, 
and act with, one or another "party." The 
machine politicians, generally controlled by the 
power of money, virtually decide and control 
all questions of pubhc policy. Often, if not gen- 
erally, those questions are decided by the con- 
certed action of the politicians in both great 
"parties," acting in combination. Public mea- 
sures, to use the phrase of the day, are " jammed 
through." The phrase is not attractive. But, 
like all phrases which work their way into the 
language of the time, it stands for a fact. It is 
to-day the fact, that the most important public 
measures, which are — in form — adopted by our so- 
called popular assemblies, are " jammed through," 
by the commands of the machine politicians, 
who, in their turn, are controlled by money. 
Free thought, and free speech, as regular pro- 
cesses in the daily transaction of our public busi- 
ness, by our public servants, so called, have — 
for the time — almost fallen into disuse. The 
reason for that state of things is, in the main, 
to be found in the term system, this system of 
perpetual periodic "popular election," falsely so 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 73 

called. It is this system of tenure by election, 
which is responsible for the present suppression 
of free thought and free speech, which ought 
to be the forces of supreme control in our daily 
political life. 

We must abandon it. We must abandon the 
attempt, in any form, to vest the supreme con- 
trol of the body politic in the entire body of citi- 
zens in mass. The supreme power in the body 
politic must be the popular assembly. 

But then we strike another point. 

If the popular assembly is to be a body of men 
capable of exercising this power of supreme con- 
trol wisely, it must be composed of men who are 
able and upright; of the community's best men; 
men who command the confidence of their fel- 
low citizens ; men who are selected by their fellow 
men by reason of their superior abilities and 
character. 

How are we to get men of that kind ? 

Only by the machinery of popular election. 
But that machinery must be so framed that the 
process of popular election will be really free; so 
as to make it practicable for the citizens to make 
their own free choice of their representatives on 
their own best judgment. 

How can that result be accomplished in prac- 



74 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

tice? How can the members of the popular as- 
sembly be selected in such a way as to make 
them really the people's free choice ? What form 
of the process of popular election can we devise, 
which will insure that the selection of the men 
at the head of the body politic shall be really an 
act of the people's own deliberate judgment ? 

That brings us to the consideration of our next 
political law, the law which decides the form of the 
process of popular election. 

It is this : — 

III. THE POPULAR ASSEMBLY MUST BE THE 
ORGAN FOR FORMING AND UTTERING THE 
PEOPLE'S JUDGMENT IN THE SELECTION OF 
MEN. 

Popular election, in some form, as the process 
for the selection of the men at the head of the 
state, would seem to be almost a logical neces- 
sity, in any state termed democratic. No other 
method would be deemed possible. 

The commonly accepted reason, thus far, for 
the use of the process of popular election in the 
selection of the highest public officials, has been 
its supposed necessity as a security for the peo- 
ple's rights and liberties. Many men might con- 
cede, that the process of popular election is not 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 75 

the one best fitted to secure the selection of the 
men most fit for the public service; that it does 
not give any high degree of certainty for getting 
the right man in the right place; which must 
always be the first essential to efficiency of admin- 
istration, and to good government in general. 

My contention, however, is, that the process 
of popular election, used in the right form, and 
within right limitations, is the best available 
practical process, for the selection of the few 
men who are to be the head of every body poli- 
tic. If the process can be made to take such a 
form, that it shall be a real act of judgment, by 
the people, on the fitness of single men for sin- 
gle places; if the process can be made to take 
such form as to give us the people's calm delib- 
erate judgment, as to the character and capa- 
city of the men for whom they vote, then, no 
other process can be devised, which is so cer- 
tain in my belief to secure a wise selection of the 
men who are to fill the highest places in the 
government. Especially, no other process can be 
devised, which will insure the selection of men 
who will be so sure to command the people's con- 
fidence. And that is a thing of vital importance. 

Of course, we must have some form of the 
process, which shall give us something more than 



76 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

an aggregation of individual assents, to some 
" party ticket," in the making of which the citi- 
zens have virtually no voice. Of course, we must 
have some form of the process, which will make 
the act of popular election an act of deliberation, 
an act of judgment, on the part of the entire peo- 
ple. If, however, we can get such a form of the 
process — then we shall have the best means yet 
devised, for the selection of our chief executives, 
and of the men who are to hold the position of 
final supreme control, the men who are to be 
the state's brain; the men who are to control its 
chief executive, and through him handle the entire 
forces of government. 

Not only should the act of popular election 
be an act of judgment; but that judgment, if it 
is to have any substantial value for the practical 
purposes of government, should be a judgment 
on the fitness of separate individuals, for the 
special work of their separate places. One man 
will be useful in a deliberative body, for advice 
and counsel; for the discussion and decision of 
large broad questions of public policy. But he 
may be most unfit, to be chief executive. He 
may be a man of weak will; a man devoid of 
executive force; a man without discretion, with- 
out nerve; of unsound judgment; a man with- 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 77 

out practical experience in administration. For 
any one of many reasons, he may be extremely 
ill fitted to be a chief executive. Consequently, 
the process of popular election must have such 
form, as will make it possible to pass judgment 
on single men separately, on a due consideration 
of their individual fitness, for the work of special 
oflSces. 

It is quite evident, that no such result as that 
is possible from our present combination of the 
separate ballot and the term system. Hardly 
any one would contend, that these frequent pe- 
riodic elections, so called, give us anything that 
can be accurately termed a judgment of the peo- 
ple, on the fitness of individual men for special 
work; or, in general, on the fitness of any man 
for any work. At best, they give us men who 
chance at the time to be "popular." But such 
men may be most dangerous and pernicious, if 
put in control of the forces of the state. 

We must then devise some other form of the 
process. We must devise a form that will be 
simple, easy of operation, and inexpensive; one 
which will make only reasonable demands on 
the time and energies of the individual citizen; 
demands which he can meet with ease, with no 
undue sacrifice of his own individual interests. 



78 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

But, above all things, our efforts will be fruit- 
less, unless we can devise some form of the pro- 
cess of popular election, which will enable a 
people to think, and deliberate, as a people; to 
form its united common judgment, as a people, 
at the time, and in the act, of voting, on the 
fitness of single men, for work of a single 
kind. 

Gan we devise a form of the process, which will 
meet these requirements ? 

My answer to this question is, that we can at 
once find such a form, by simply reverting to the 
old-fashioned natural procedure, which was in 
use in this country successfully, for many years, 
until the experiment was made quite early in 
our poHtical history in the use of the separate 
secret ballot. 

The process in use in this country before the 
separate secret ballot was that of viva voce vot- 
ing in the public meeting. The use of the pro- 
cess of popular election was then mainly limited 
to the election of single men, to be the repre- 
sentatives of single towns, in the early colonial 
and state legislatures. The individual citizens 
came together in the town meeting. In addi- 
tion to their regular town business, they would 
elect their representative to the colonial or state 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 79 

legislature, the "general court," the body which 
acted on behalf of the whole people, upon all 
questions of general public interest. The pro- 
cess of election was simple, and easy. Nomina- 
tions were made by any one who wished. They 
could be made up to the last moment, even 
after the voting began, or after it had continued 
for a long time. The process of nomination had 
complete freedom. There was complete free- 
dom of discussion, at the time, and in the act, 
of voting. Discussion was had on the merits of 
candidates, on their fitness for the special work 
which they were to do. The discussion could 
concern all points, which would bear on the fit- 
ness of the men for their particular work; their 
ability, their character, their opinions on public 
questions, if those opinions had at the time any 
practical importance. Each individual citizen 
had something more than his individual vote. 
He had also his individual weight, in guiding 
and influencing the votes of other men. In reach- 
ing the final result, citizens were not merely 
counted. They were weighed. Their opinions 
were weighed. As nearly as such a result is prac- 
ticable by finite human agencies, the opinions of 
different individual citizens got the full weight 
that they deserved. The practical result was. 



80 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

in the large majority of cases, that the repre- 
sentatives so chosen by the old town meetings, 
were the community's ablest men, the men of 
character, the successful men; the men who 
had achieved success by steady hard work, and 
honesty. They were not the community's unem- 
ployed. They were not the community's refuse. 

So much for the working of that process in 
the case of a single town, or of any small com- 
munity, the numbers of which would allow all 
its citizens to meet, and act, in a single deliber- 
ative body. 

Let us next see how the process could be 
adapted to the case of a community of larger 
numbers. 

It is easy to see, that if it were the case of 
electing a representative of the colony or a state 
to a higher popular assembly, which should act 
for many colonies, or many states, the "general 
court" already chosen as stated could at once 
elect such new representative by the same sim- 
ple process. It is easily seen, that the machinery 
of representation can be adapted without limit, 
in a succession of electoral colleges, as the ma- 
chinery of the process of popular election. By 
changes in figures, it can be adapted to voting 
constituencies of any numbers. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 81 

By way of illustration, let us take a constit- 
uency, let us say, of two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand voters; which would ordinarily correspond 
to a total population of about one million two 
hundred and fifty thousand persons. A com- 
munity of that size would comprise five hun- 
dred primary districts, each having five hundred 
voting citizens. If, then, the voters in each pri- 
mary district met in one body, and elected one 
representative; and the five hundred represen- 
tatives so chosen afterwards met in an electoral 
college, to elect one or more public officials, we 
should then have this result. At each of these 
two stages, the meeting of citizens in the pri- 
mary district, and the subsequent meeting of the 
representatives in an electoral college, each pro- 
cess, that of nomination, of pubUc discussion, 
and voting, would have complete freedom. In 
the primary election district, the citizens would 
have complete freedom — of nomination, of dis- 
cussion, and voting — in the choice of their repre- 
sentative. In the resulting electoral college of 
those representatives, those representatives would 
in their turn have complete freedom — of nom- 
ination, of discussion, and voting — in the choice 
of public officials. 

The entire process, from the beginning to the 



82 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

end, is simple in the extreme. It is the process 
of nature. It has the simplicity of nature. 

This was the process, by the use of which 
were selected the members of our colonial legis- 
latures, our early constitutional conventions, the 
conventions which uttered the Declaration of 
Independence, the members of the Continental 
Congress, the members of the Convention which 
drafted our National Constitution, the mem- 
bers of the different state conventions which 
adopted it, the members of the conventions 
which drafted our early state constitutions, and 
the members of our early state legislatures. By 
this process, with unimportant variations, were 
selected practically all the men, who did such 
remarkable statesmen's work in our early polit- 
ical history. The men so selected were inva- 
riably the community's ablest and most upright 
men. 

It is the process best fitted, in all ordinary 
cases, to insure the best practical results in the 
selection of men, for the highest places in the 
body politic. 

Let us consider the reason of the thing. 

With men who have reached such a degree 
of civilization that they demand free democratic 
institutions, it is simply human nature, that they 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 83 

will vote as to the fitness of candidates for high 
public office on their best judgment. Every man, 
of ordinary intelligence, of ordinary common 
sense, when he casts his vote for the men who 
are to act for him, in making and enforcing 
laws, in providing for the protection and well- 
being of himself, his family, and his fellows, 
will, almost as matter of instinct, vote for men 
of abiUty and character, if he has the full and 
free opportunity so to do. He will not willingly 
vote for the unemployed; for men who are 
unknown; for men whose services are so value- 
less, that no one employs them. Every ordinary 
man, of ordinary common sense, at least in- 
tends, and attempts, to get the best servants, 
and the best service, that he can; in public 
affairs, as well as private. 

It may be said, that conditions with us to-day 
are different from what they were a hundred 
years ago; that we have since that time had in 
our large cities a large influx of ignorant foreign 
immigrants; and that the same governmental 
methods cannot be used by our present hetero- 
geneous urban populations, that could be used 
by our native population in the early part of 
the nineteenth century. Especially, it will be 
said, that in our large cities, the ignorant are 



84 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

in a majority, and that they will outweigh, and 
outvote, the educated minority. 

But the practical question is, how are we to 
get the best process of popular election, for our 
existing population, such as it is. Even igno- 
rant and uneducated men will act more wisely, 
with freedom of nomination, discussion, and 
voting, than without it. Even ignorant and un- 
educated men will do better work in the pro- 
cess of election when free, than in the chains of 
the election machine. Even men who are igno- 
rant and uneducated wish to get the best ser- 
vants, and the best service, which they know 
how to get. 

But this idea as to the ignorance and inca- 
pacity of the voters in our large cities does great 
injustice, in my opinion, to the population of 
our large communities at the present day. 

Both the voters and the machine politicians, 
in our large cities, are of the same character, 
and the same quality, as in the country. The 
only difference is, that public affairs in the 
cities are on a larger scale than in the country; 
and, consequently, the practical results are on 
a larger scale. Abuses and evils in the cities 
are more visible to the eye. They exist, in both 
places, in about the same proportions. There is 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 85 

as much political corruption, and political mis- 
conduct, in the one as in the other. The diflfer- 
ence is in magnitude, not proportion. 

Furthermore, as to the distinction between 
our population of a century ago and our popu- 
lation of to-day, with its increased urban ma- 
jorities, the advantage, in both mental alert- 
ness and political intelligence, is in my opinion 
largely on the side of the population of to-day. 
Its stores of political knowledge, that is, of prac- 
tical political knowledge, are larger than ever 
before. The public press is larger, abler, better 
equipped for public service, than ever before. 
Whatever may be the differences between the 
American people of to-day and the American 
people in the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, there has undoubtedly been a great in- 
crease in the volume of our political knowledge. 
It may be conceded, and it is my contention, 
that, for the time, we have allowed the process 
of united common thought, of united pubHc de- 
liberation, as a regular process in our daily po- 
litical life, to fall into disuse. But the process is 
not lost. Rational public discussion of public 
questions is not one of the "lost arts." It will 
revive. It will revive soon. This American 
people is becoming restless — is getting weary. 



86 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

of having important public measures crowded 
through by mere brute force, under the dicta- 
tion of the machine politicians. It is beginning 
to yearn again for the atmosphere of free po- 
litical thought, and free political action, by the 
process of free public discussion; the only pro- 
cess which is suited to the needs, or the genius, 
of free democratic government. We need be 
under no fear, as to the permanence of the 
power of free thought, and free speech; or as to 
the absolute certainty, that they will again be- 
come the forces of supreme control, in practical 
politics. They will do so soon. 

But this consideration of possible differences 
between our population to-day and a century 
ago, either in city or country, or in both, is after 
all quite aside from the practical point at issue. 
Whether our population to-day be a little more 
or a little less intelligent and moral, than it was 
a hundred years ago, matters very little, in the 
consideration of the practical operation of the 
process of popular election. The point of prac- 
tical importance is this: that the old process 
of viva voce voting, in the public meeting, by 
both citizens and their duly elected representa- 
tives, is the only process wherpby either citizens 
or the community can secure genuine freedom. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 87 

of either thought or action; and that both the 
citizens and the community can accomplish 
better practical results, with such freedom of 
thought and action, than without it. In short, 
they can accomplish better working results, 
with a free head, and a free hand, than they can 
in the fetters of the election machine. 

Let us next consider some others of the prac- 
tical features of this simple natural machinery 
of the public meeting, used at each stage of the 
process of popular election. 

In the first place, we must note its extreme 
simplicity. Nothing can be more simple. Citi- 
zens who can operate the process of popular 
election in any form, can operate it in this form. 
It involves no outside machinery of caucuses, 
and conventions, to be manipulated beforehand. 
Any one can comprehend the process. Any one 
can take his part in it. If a citizen wishes to 
make a nomination, all that he has to do is, to 
"stand up in meeting," and make his nomina- 
tion. After the nominations are made, the pro- 
cess of voting is as simple as that of nomination. 
The voting can be an ordinary standing vote, 
if that is all that is desired. If it is desired to 
have something more, and generally that should 
be desired, then there may be the roll call of the 



88 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

citizens; and each man can vote when his name 
is called, for the candidate of his own choice. 
No machinery can be more simple. It is the 
simplicity of nature. 

In the next place, the process is inexpensive. 
It requires no printing of ballots, or "tickets," 
general or special. There need be no inspec- 
tors of election, or other officials, either for the 
receiving nominations, or the counting of votes. 
Every citizen will be an inspector of election. 
Every citizen can keep his own count of the 
votes. Money expenditure is reduced to the 
minimum; almost to a single item, that of the 
hire of a hall for each public meeting; first, of 
the citizens in the primary election districts; 
and afterwards, of conventions of delegates. 

Next, the securities against fraud are simple in 
the extreme; and at the same time as complete 
as it is possible to make them. False persona- 
tion, fraudulent registration, fraudulent voting, 
are all made so difficult of execution, and cer- 
tain of detection, as to make their abolition 
nearly certain. The citizens who live in any one 
neighborhood will meet together. Thereby they 
will have the strongest practicable security against 
fraud of any kind, either in registration, persona- 
tion, voting, or counting of votes. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 89 

But the chief point is, that this process is 
the only one, which gives us the possibiHty — 
of complete freedom of action, of both citizen 
and the people; which gives so much as the 
possibility — of getting the best judgment of 
both. Free, open, public discussion — at the 
time, and in the act — of nominating — and vot- 
ing — at each stage of the process, both in the 
choice of delegates and in the final choice of 
public officials, that is the possibiHty — which we 
have with the simple, old-fashioned, well-proved 
process of the public meeting. It is a possibility, 
which we can get in no other way. 

Therein we have the essential distinction be- 
tween the practical operation of the process 
of the separate secret ballot, and the process of 
the public meeting. The one makes freedom of 
action — either for the citizen, or the commu- 
nity — an impossibility. The other makes that 
freedom complete. The distinction is essential, 
vital, and fundamental. The one process is that 
of free democratic government; the only one, 
whereby either the citizen or the people can 
secure freedom — in its selection of its public 
servants. The other insures — absolutely — 
and certainly — the supremacy of the election 
machine. 



90 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

Have we lost sight — forever — of the essen- 
tial vital necessity, of free public conference, 
of free public discussion, as the only practicable 
means of influencing men by reasonable argu- 
ment, in their action on public as well as pri- 
vate questions; and especially, in their action in 
the choice of public officials? 

As to the answer to this question, my own 
mind is free from doubt. The process of free 
public deliberation has, no doubt, for the time, 
gone into eclipse. It has, for the time, almost 
disappeared from our daily governmental pro- 
cesses. But men have not ceased to be intel- 
ligent, thinking, reasoning, and reasonable be- 
ings. Sound thought has not lost its power, as 
a force in practical politics. Even now, our en- 
tire machinery of popular election goes on the 
assumption, an assumption rightly made, that the 
mass of individual citizens can be influenced, 
in casting their votes, by reasonable argument. 

But the chief practical difficulty, under which 
we have been laboring in late years in the oper- 
ation of our election machinery has been the 
overwhelming strength of "party" feeling, and 
"party" obligations. The most powerful foe to 
free thought, with us to-day, is to be found in 
the ties and obligations of "party." No doubt 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 91 

men are gradually coming to greater independ- 
ence of action in voting; are gradually coming 
to greater independence of party influence. But 
the power of that influence has in late years been 
so great, as to almost destroy the practical value 
of the ballot. The chief purpose, in giving the 
citizen the ballot at all, is that he should vote on 
the fitness of candidates on his individual judg- 
ment. In practice, however, the vast majority 
of the citizens virtually disregard their own 
individual judgments. In the vast majority of 
cases, we vote, blindly, and regularly, for our 
regular "party" candidates. We find any other 
course impracticable, with our present political 
machinery. Thereby, we virtually disfranchise 
ourselves, and defeat the fundamental purpose 
for which the ballot has its existence. 

This condition in affairs is due, almost en- 
tirely, to the use of the separate secret ballot. 
The use of the separate ballot has made confer- 
ence and public discussion a practical impossi- 
bility, in the process of popular election. 

No way can be devised, so far as my lights 
go, whereby the citizen can be emancipated 
from his slavery to the great "party" organi- 
zations, from his slavery to the election machine, 
except to return to the use of the public meet- 



92 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

ing, as the organ to be used in the process of 
popular election. 

But it will be said, any system of viva voce 
voting will destroy secrecy, and subject the voter 
to corrupt influences. 

This view has had, now for many years, the 
almost unanimous support of writers on pohti- 
cal subjects. 

It is, in my opinion, radically erroneous. 

Let us look at the reason of the thing. 

In the first place, open public discussion, 
with open public voting, affords the best prac- 
ticable opportunity, to enable the wise and up- 
right, the honest and respectable men in the 
community, to influence the votes of their fel- 
low citizens, by the legitimate methods of reason- 
able argument, by the force of their own presence, 
and their own example. Then, too, it is only 
the disreputable candidates, who will lose by the 
process of viva voce voting. No man is ever 
deterred by publicity, from voting for men who 
are reputable and respectable. Secrecy in voting 
is needed only by men who are ashamed of the 
quality of their action. Secrecy is a protection, 
only for action which should not be protected. 
It is wholly opposed to the genius of free demo- 
cratic institutions. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 93 

But we have here another point. Every citi- 
zen, in deciding his own action in voting for 
public oflficials, is entitled, of right, to the ad- 
vice, and example, of his fellows; especially of 
those who are abler and wiser than himself. 
Moreover, his fellows are entitled, of right, to 
that opportunity to advise and influence him. 
If it be said, that the voter, when compelled 
to vote openly, will be subjected to influence, 
the answer is, that he ought to be subjected to 
the influence of the wise and upright. No man 
has the right, in a free democratic government, 
to conceal his action. Publicity is the strongest 
possible security for purity. Publicity is politi- 
cal sunlight. No man wishes secrecy, who in- 
tends to vote on his convictions of the right. It 
is only those men who plan mischief to the state, 
who desire secrecy. Those men should not have 
that protection. They should be dragged into 
the open. They should be compelled to vote 
in the face of their fellow men. Responsibility 
to the people, under a democratic government, 
should begin with the responsibility of the indi- 
vidual citizen, for his individual action in cast- 
ing his vote. That responsibility can be enforced 
in only one way — by publicity; by having the 
action of the individual citizen open and above 



94 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

board, in the presence of his fellows. The "in- 
fluence " to which the citizen will be subjected, 
in the process of viva voce voting, will be an 
influence only for good. 

Moreover, free public discussion, at the time, 
and in the act, of voting, is the only means, 
whereby it is possible in the process of popular 
election to secure to each citizen his due weight 
— in the choice of our highest public servants. 
Our present machinery is a machinery for count- 
ing noses. The public meeting is a machinery 
for weighing brains; for weighing ideas; for giv- 
ing to each man his due weight, in producing 
the final result; for securing to each citizen his 
legitimate influence over the action of his fellows. 
Thereby he has his legitimate opportunity for 
moving other men, by his advice, and his exam- 
ple. Of that opportunity he is almost wholly 
deprived by the separate secret ballot. By the 
secret ballot, we tend to put all men on a dead 
level. We make every individual count only for 
one. But men of weight and influence ought to 
count in proportion to their weight and influence. 
No political process can make it an absolute cer- 
tainty — that they will so count. But the process 
of the public meeting gives a much greater possi- 
bility of that result, than the separate secret ballot. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 95 

And it gives us the greatest certainty that is 
practicable, under any process. 

It may be said, too, that the viva voce process 
makes it possible to buy voters, and make sure 
of their votes. 

There is no doubt, that the viva voce process 
would give the opportunity of knowing how 
each individual citizen voted; and would, in 
that way, and to that extent, make possible the 
purchase of votes. 

On the other hand, however, the viva voce 
process in the public meeting will give to the 
honest citizen the possibility of knowing what 
voters are purchased; and of bringing to bear 
on those voters the full weight of public opinion, 
and public indignation. 

But this buying of votes under our present 
machinery is much misunderstood. With the 
present methods of the machine politicians, the 
payment for votes is generally made contingent 
on results; and consists mainly in the favorable 
use of political power after election, not in the 
use of money before election. 

There can be no security so complete, against 
the purchase of votes, as the process of voting 
in public. With open public voting, the buyers 
and sellers of votes will be known. It will sel- 



96 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

dom be difficult to detect them. In the end, the 
security against buying and selling votes must 
always finally rest in the community's common 
conscience. That conscience will have the best 
field for its operation, with publicity in the act 
of voting. 

But this danger of bujdng and selling votes, such 
as it is, will always exist, under any form of the 
process of voting. The method now is, to buy 
votes at wholesale, by buying the magnates of the 
election machine. The operation is made all the 
more easy, for the reason that we, the voters, who 
are bought and sold, are not aware of the fact. 
Under the supremacy of the election machine, the 
votes of all of us, in each of the "grand old par- 
ties," are bought and sold, by the thousand, and 
the million. We, the voting citizens, are bought 
and sold, in herds, like so many sheep, following 
year after year our old political bell-wethers. Why 
make such a pother about buying a few votes 
at retail, when our present pohtical masters are 
continually selling our votes at wholesale ? The 
purchase of votes will be decreased, by giving to 
the voters the fullest knowledge of the facts, so 
that the public conscience, and public opinion, 
can have their full legitimate effect upon each indi- 
vidual voter. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 97 

Let us sum up this branch of our study. 

The act of prime importance in any system of 
democratic government, or in government of any 
kind, is the selection of the men who are to be the 
state's head; the power of supreme control in the 
daily conduct of public affairs. All other functions 
in the state are of comparatively slight importance 
in comparison with this, the selection of the peo- 
ple's highest public servants, their elected rulers. 
On those men we must always depend, for the 
wisdom and efficiency of our public administra- 
tion. 

Consequently, it is of vital importance, that 
our organization for the selection of those men 
should be as perfect as we can make it. At best, 
it will be imperfect. But we must make it as 
perfect as we can. 

In order to make it as perfect as we can, we 
must use the well-tried process of combination, 
of conference, of joint deliberation, of united com- 
mon thought, by the entire community, thinking 
and acting as one body, in the act of selecting those 
men. The selection of those men, above all things, 
must be the act of the people's combined concen- 
trated judgment, the product of its best thought. 
That product, in the act of popular election, can 
be obtained by no possible process, by the use of 



98 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

no possible organ, other than the popular assem- 
bly; the assembly of the entire community, meet- 
ing and acting in one body, in the persons of all 
its voting citizens, when their numbers will per- 
mit; in the persons of their elected representa- 
tives, when the numbers of the citizens are too 
large to permit them to meet and act as a single 
deliberative body. 

It is to be noted at this point, that some such 
organization as is here considered, an electoral 
college of elected representatives, for the choice of 
the President of the United States, was evidently 
in the contemplation of the framers of our national 
constitution, when they provided for the choice 
of presidential electors. There was, however, this 
singular fundamental omission; the omission of 
any provision whereby these electors could meet, 
as one body, for joint action in the act of election. 
This omission was fatal. It effectually prevented 
the possibility of independent deliberative action 
on the part of those electors. If there had been 
such a provision, permitting independent original 
action by those presidential electors, as one body, 
we should doubtless have seen a very different 
course of events in the choice of our Presidents. 
It might then have been, that the choice of those 
Presidents would have been made a real act of 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 99 

judgment, instead of a mere counting of the num- 
bers of the men who could be induced to "rally" 
around one or another "party standard." We 
might not have had such a predominance of drum 
and trumpet politics, of politics of the brass band. 

However that may be, it is evident, that in the 
future, in the selection of the mayors of our large 
cities, the governors of our states, the Presidents 
of the nation, and the members of our popular 
assemblies, we must have something better than 
the mere possibihty of a choice between two or 
more "party tickets," constructed by machine 
politicians, in the making of which the citizens, 
and the people, have — virtually — no voice. We 
must have a process of popular election, which 
will insure free popular action; which will ena- 
ble us to get a real judgment of the people, think- 
ing, and acting, as one organism, on the fitness of 
single men, for single places. 

Such thought, and action, are possible — only 
by the use of the popular assembly, as the organ 
for forming and uttering the people's judgment, 
on questions of men as well as measures. 

The results, then, of this branch of our study 
as to the form of organized democracy, are the 
following three conclusions: — 

I. Administration must be single-headed. 

Lore. 



100 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

II. The organ of supreme control in the body 

pohtic must be the popular assembly. 
III. The popular assembly must be the organ 
for forming and uttering the people's 
judgment, in the selection of men. 
These conclusions involve the adoption of 
nothing new or untried in political machinery. 
Single-headed administration is as old as monar- 
chy. Indeed, it is in single-headed administration, 
that monarchy has its one desirable feature. It is 
in single-headed administration, that monarchy 
has in all ages shown such superiority as it pos- 
sesses — as a practical political institution. All 
human experience shows that the organization 
under single heads is the only form of administra- 
tive organization, which will enforce responsibility, 
and insure efficiency. 

The popular assembly, too, is the only organ 
which has ever been devised, or used, whereby any 
people can form and utter its own free judgment, 
or its own free will, whether as to measures or 
men. The separate individual ballot may enable 
the mass of separate individual citizens to express 
their individual preferences between two or more 
"tickets." But it will not enable the ordinary 
individual citizen to have any freedom of action, 
or his rightful weight and influence, in the selection 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 101 

of public officials. It will not enable a people to 
go through the process of joint deliberation, as a 
people; to form its own judgment, as a people. 
The only organ, by which it is possible, either for 
the citizen to have a free active part in the process 
of popular election, or for a people to form its own 
free judgment in the choice of its rulers, is the 
popular assembly. 

These three laws, it is submitted, state the essen- 
tials of organized democracy. They are deduced 
from experience; mainly from our own experi- 
ence, the largest in all history in the operation 
of democratic institutions. 

Summed up in a single phrase, the entire scheme 
here submitted may be stated to be — the estab- 
lishment of government by the people, acting as 
a unit in its representative popular assembly. In 
matters of administration, the popular assembly 
would act through a single chief executive, elected 
by the people, directly and continuously respon- 
sible to the people in its popular assembly. The 
popular assembly would be used as the organ for 
forming and uttering the people's judgment, and 
the people's will, as to both measures and 

The forces of administration would be concen- 
trated, and controlled, under a chief executive; 
who would be directly and continuously under 



102 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

the immediate supervision and control of the popu- 
lar assembly. Administrative responsibility would 
be single and complete throughout; culminating in 
the responsibility of the single chief executive to a 
body of men of exceptional ability, of full and accu- 
rate knowledge, who would be at all times closely 
in touch with the entire range of public affairs. 

The changes here suggested strike at the very 
roots of the causes of the existence of the election 
machine. 

The process of popular election, it is seen, would 
have its work reduced to a minimum. It would 
cease to be annual and continuous. It would be 
simple in form, easy of operation, free from the 
necessity of large money expenditure. It would 
be used only for electing the few men at each 
government's head : the chief executives, and 
the members of the different popular assemblies. 
national, state, and local. The form of the process 
used would be that of open viva voce action, in 
the act of nomination, discussion, and voting, in 
the successive popular assemblies ; those assembhes, 
in the primary election districts, being composed of 
the voting citizens ; in the higher assemblies, of their 
duly elected representatives. 

There is the sum and substance of the entire 
scheme, so far as concerns its form. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 103 

The fundamental idea, on which the scheme 
rests, is the supremacy, in each body politic, in 
each town, city, state, and the nation, of the will, 
and judgment, of the entire community; conferring, 
deliberating, forming its common judgment, and 
its common will, in one body, as a unit, upon all 
public questions, whether of measures or men. 

The scheme here suggested meets at once, di- 
rectly and effectively, the chief practical obstacle, 
wliich now stands in the way of giving to the 
people the free choice of its own chief rulers, by 
reducing to reasonable proportions our present 
immense mass of election work, and simplifying 
its machinery. 

We have seen, that the fundamental fact, 
which destroys the possibility of a free choice of 
their rulers by the people under our present sys- 
tem, lies in the volume, and the intricacy, of this 
permanent periodic mass of election work, which 
is forced upon us by the term system, in connec- 
tion with the direct secret ballot. The votes of 
our large modem constituencies cannot be handled 
under our present system, without these corre- 
spondingly large election organizations, wliich we 
term "parties." That difficulty is met directly. 
It is completely obliterated from the operation of 
our governmental machinery. We reduce to the 



104 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

lowest point, both the number of elective offices, 
and the frequency of elections. We destroy the 
periodic permanence of this election work. We 
simplify the election machinery. We make that 
machinery workable, with the expenditure by the 
citizens of a reasonable amount of time. 

This form of electoral machinery makes it prac- 
ticable for the citizen to take an active part in each 
separate stage of the process of popular election; 
nomination, discussion, and voting. The secret bal- 
lot effectually bars the citizen from taking part in 
the acts of nomination and common discussion. 
It sterilizes him. It virtually reduces him to the 
position, and function, of a vermiform appendix. 

The scheme would make an immense reduction 
of money expenditure in our process of popular 
election. Consider the expenditure, in time, and 
money, involved in this never ending cycle of 
revolutions, which we term "popular elections." 
Any one of our annual elections, in only a single 
large city, now costs hundreds of thousands of 
dollars. Any one of our quadrennial presidential 
elections costs many millions. 

Nearly all that money outlay would be avoided. 
We should take away the need, and to a great ex- 
tent, the use, of money, in the regular manipula- 
tion of our election machinery. Instead of having 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 105 

these costly annual contests between bodies of 
professional politicians for the control of our dif- 
ferent governments, we should have simple inex- 
pensive elections of their public servants by the 
citizens, when required to fill vacancies. The money 
cost of the process of popular election, when used, 
would be reduced to its lowest figure. In a voting 
constituency of two hundred and fifty thousand, 
which would be the approximate number of voters 
in a population of one million, the entire cost of 
an election would consist of the rent of a hall in 
each primary election district of about five hundred 
voters, for the choice of a delegate by the voting 
citizens in that district; with the rent of another 
hall, for the meeting of the assembly of the dele- 
gates so chosen, for the election of the representa- 
tives, or chief executive, to be chosen by that con- 
stituency. All expenditure for printing ballots, and 
for election officials, would be avoided. So, too, all 
the cost of campaign meetings, and general cam- 
paign operations, would be made unnecessary; in- 
asmuch as the only discussion which would have 
any practical bearing on the result would be the dis- 
cussion of the citizens themselves in the primary 
meetings, and of their representatives in the repre- 
sentative electoral colleges. The saving in mere 
money expenditure would be beyond calculation. 



106 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

The larger the constituency, the larger will be 
the saving of money. A single additional series 
of representative electoral assemblies would adapt 
the machinery to a constituency of one hundred 
and twenty-five million voters; which would re- 
present approximately an entire population of over 
six hundred million persons. Slight changes in 
the numbers, of the citizens voting in the primary 
districts, and of the delegates in the different 
electoral assemblies, would adapt the machinery 
to constituencies of any size. In all constituencies, 
large and small, the money expenditure of operat- 
ing the machinery is reduced to a minimum. 

In the next place, this plan of reorganization 
would secure the outside possible degree of po- 
litical freedom — for the individual citizen, and 
the entire people. 

Under any possible political system, the outside 
possibilities of the active part, which the individual 
citizen can take in the actual operation of the gov- 
ernment of any large community, must be limited 
to his action in the selection of the men at the gov- 
ernment's head. More than that he cannot secure, 
in the way of political activity, under any form of 
political machinery that the wit of man has yet 
devised. 

In that process of popular election, we have 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 107 

already seen the practical result, which is always 
certain to come from the attempt to have the citi- 
zen do too much. Such an attempt takes the pro- 
cess of election altogether out of his hands, so far 
as concerns any brain work, any substantial de- 
gree of political power, or any free political action. 
It limits his action to the mere deposit of a ballot. 
He loses his part in the more important acts, of 
nomination, and public discussion of the qualifi- 
cations of candidates. His action becomes almost 
purely mechanical. He loses his pohtical freedom. 
The scheme here under consideration, however, 
will give to the citizen, and to the people, the 
most complete measure of freedom, that is pos- 
sible under any political system. In the process of 
popular election here submitted, each individual 
citizen, in each primary assembly, will have com- 
plete freedom, — of combination, of nomination, 
of public discussion, and of voting. Machine poli- 
ticians may make as many " tickets " as they see 
fit. Thereafter, when the citizens come together 
in their primary meetings, they will be able to 
oppose combinations made beforehand by the poli- 
ticians, with combinations made on the spot by 
themselves. They will be able to make new nom- 
inations without limit ; and support those new 
nominations in open public debate ; with the 



108 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

fullest possibility of allowing every citizen to act on 
his own free judgment. Greater freedom of action 
than that, it is impossible to secure by any pro- 
cess conceivable. In comparison with the slavery 
under which we now exist, the difiference between 
the plan here proposed and the system we now use, 
is the difference between daylight and darkness. 

In addition to this point, however, we have the 
further one, that the abolition of the term sys- 
tem will destroy this permanent supply of political 
prizes, and the permanence of occupation, which 
constitute the reason of the existence of the ma- 
chine politician. It is this annual mass of vacant 
offices, this annual collection of election prizes, 
which furnishes the means of payment from our 
public treasuries, of our great standing armies 
of machine politicians. Take away this periodic 
mass of vacant offices, and the machine politicians 
will be compelled to betake themselves to other 
employments. 

The disappearance of these standing armies 
of professionals, which must take place when we 
abolish their occupation, and their field of plunder, 
will make it possible for each body politic to make 
its own free choice of its public officials, upon its 
own best judgment of the individual fitness of those 
men for the special work of their special offices. 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 109 

That result is an impossibility — unless the people 
has full freedom of action in the process of pop- 
ular election. That process is the fundamental 
process in democratic government. 

The next point is, that this scheme of reorgani- 
zation will greatly enlarge the citizen's field of 
political activity, and the citizen's political power. 

Can anything be more dismally unsatisfactory, 
as the aggregate of the citizen's poUtical activities, 
than this present ridiculous practice, of putting " his 
mark " against a single name, or against a " ticket," 
placed before the voter by different factions of 
machine politicians .f* Can there be a more com- 
plete surrender of the elective franchise, in practice, 
than is involved in the actual operation of our 
present election machinery, under which the vast 
majority of the citizens become mere puppets, to 
be manipulated by professional poHticians ? 

If, however, we so reduce the volume of our 
election work, and so simplify its machinery, as 
to bring its operation within the possibilities of 
busy workingmen, then every citizen, when he 
comes to act in the process of popular election, 
can have his full opportunity of taking part in 
the entire process: that of nomination, of public 
discussion, and the final vote. He will be able to 
perform the entire process at once. He can have 



110 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

that degree of practical influence in the process, 
which is due to his capacity and character. He 
can do something more than count as one unit. 
He will have his legitimate individual weight, at 
the time, and in the act, of voting. 

In the next place, such a reorganization will 
secure the wisest practicable administration of 
pubhc affairs. 

Every large body of men must always depend for 
its working capacity on the men at its head; on 
their calibre, their character, and their training. 
For the selection of those men at the head, in each 
and every body politic, no process is so certain to 
give the best practical results, in the large majority 
of cases, as the process of popular election, used 
in its proper form, and within its proper limits. 
Citizens who act in their public meeting, when 
their action is free, will not choose men who are 
unknown; men who have no reputations at all. 
Neither will they choose men whose reputations 
are bad. No doubt, where the entire mass of citi- 
zens vote in chains, where the only choice allowed 
them is one between the "tickets" of machine 
politicians, then we must expect that the process 
of "popular election," if we dignify it with that 
name, will give very unsatisfactory results. It 
will often give us men, who have either no repu- 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 111 

tations or bad ones. But whenever the action of 
any people is free, whenever a community is free to 
make its own choice of men on its own judgment, 
then it is as near to a certainty as we can get in 
human affairs, that that people's choice will be of 
men well known, of men who have acquired rep- 
utations; consequently, of men of high calibre and 
character. 

Here we have the essential fundamental basis 
of democratic institutions. It consists in the fact, 
that the instincts of "the people," the judgment 
of "the people," the sound common sense of "the 
people," when that people has genuine freedom — 
of thought, pubUc discussion, and action — fur- 
nishes the best available agency, for the selection 
of the men who are to be the head of the state. 

In the next place, this scheme of reorganization 
will promote public purity, will raise the people's 
moral standards, in both politics and private Ufe, 
It will so organize the body pohtic, as to make 
honesty and fidelity pay; make them bring large re- 
wards; as they do in private callings. It will make 
public oflScials' personal interests coincide with their 
public duties. Success in public life, as in private 
life, must be made to depend on faithful service, on 
good conduct. In order that our public servants may 
act up to their own highest standards, they must be 



112 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

free. At the same time, they must have security for 
permanence of employment. That security must 
depend solely on the quahty of their work. But the 
man who is always under the necessity of carrying 
the next election, as a condition of continuing his 
political life, is not a free man. He is the slave 
of the election machine. He depends for his tenure 
of his place, not on the quahty of his work, but 
on his value to the election machine. Every public 
official, who holds an elective office under our 
present term system, is well aware that his politi- 
cal existence, and his political advancement, de- 
pend on the grace of the politicians. It is seldom 
that any man who has political aspirations will 
venture to offend them. By one means or another, 
he will find a way to do their bidding. Every 
public official, who shows genuine political inde- 
pendence, is certain, sooner or later, to be barred 
from public life. It is to-day, in this country, prac- 
tically an impossibihty — for a man in public Hfe 
to keep his independence, and "stay in politics." 
Protestations of devotion to public interest we have 
in abundance. They are often, if not generally, 
made with sincerity. But the makers promise more 
than they can perform. When it comes to the 
moment of final pressure, almost invariably they 
succeed in finding some means of working the will 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 113 

of their masters, while saving outside appearances. 
The power of the machine poHticians is well-nigh 
absolute. They rule their servants with a rod 
of iron. 

The community's workers, the men who have 
achieved success by legitimate methods, by hon- 
est hard work, find it almost impossible at present 
to enter our pubUc service. The reason for that 
fact is found in our term system. Those men will 
gladly, eagerly, enter the public service, provided 
they can do so on conditions that will not involve 
the sacrifice of their self-respect, and will give 
them the usual securities, for a reasonable money 
income, and a reputation rightly proportioned to 
their deserts. PubUc callings, under present con- 
ditions, make it a virtual certainty — that honest, 
faithful service to public interests will not secure 
its due reward. Nothing can so demoralize our 
public service. Nothing can make it so certain, 
that the community's best men will keep out of 
that service. The situation is the natural inevitable 
product of our term system, which causes these 
perpetual revolutions in the men at the govern- 
ment's head, so that their only chance of con- 
tinuance in the service depends on the will of 
the machine politicians. The result is due to the 
poHtical mechanics. It is as sure as sunrise. 



114 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

These conditions are not the conditions of de- 
mocracy. They do not secure the realization of 
the will of the people, or of the dictates of the 
people's judgment. 

The abolition of the term system, combined 
with the substitution of a process of popular elec- 
tion, whereby citizens can have genuine freedom 
of political action, will make two things possi- 
ble: first, the people will be able to elect to the 
highest public offices, to the places of supreme 
control, the men of its own free choice; second, 
those men, after they are elected, will be free and 
independent; and, at the same time, they will 
be under a system of continuous effective responsi- 
bility to the people, acting in its popular assembly. 
They will be able to live up to their own convic- 
tions. They will have the possibility of being 
statesmen. And the people will have the possibility 

— of genuine democratic government. 

In short, with such reorganization as is here 
proposed, we should secure at least the possibility 

— of improvement. We should secure at least the 
possibility — of getting our ablest men at the head 
of our different governments, local, state, and na- 
tional; and of giving them a free hand to do their 
best work. We should not inaugurate the millen- 
nium. We should not secure results that would be 



ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 115 

perfect. But we should secure the possibility — of 
decided improvement. We should secure at least 
the possibility — of getting as good men, and as 
good practical results, in public affairs, as in pri- 
vate affairs. In my belief, we should get better; 
for the rewards would be larger ; not it may be 
in money, but in reputation. In every free coun- 
try, the ablest men have always been eager to 
enter the public service. And the people, the large 
majority of the citizens, really wish their public 
affairs to be managed by such men. But under 
our present political system, the citizens are pre- 
vented from carrying that wish into effect by 
"party" machinery; by their loyalty to "party" 
organizations; and by the impossibility of electing 
men approved by their own judgment, which is 
due to that loyalty. Loyalty to party organiza- 
tions has its praiseworthy features. When, how- 
ever, it is carried to the extent of depriving the 
citizen of freedom of action, when — in practice 
— it reduces him to a political puppet, then we 
are confronted with a condition of affairs which 
strikes at the foundation of free democratic gov- 
ernment. 



CHAPTER III 

THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 

We have now reached this point in our study. 
We have seen, that the necessary inevitable result 
of our term system, our system of periodic revolu- 
tion, is "machine politics." "Machine politics" is 
merely another name for "government by party." 
" Government by party, " whatever it may have 
been in its origin, has now resolved itself into an 
annual contest between powerful political organ- 
izations, for our public offices, and the control of 
our public treasuries. It constitutes a most subtle 
kind of a tyranny, the tyranny of a system; a 
system of our own creation, formed for the pur- 
pose of keeping the supreme power in the com- 
munity directly in the hands of the citizens. It 
is an attempt at the impossible. Mass rule, for 
that is really what we have been attempting, can- 
not be secured by any known device. It would be 
undesirable, even if it were practicable. But it 
is not practicable. It cannot be made an accom- 
plished fact. The attempt to realize it, by any 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 117 

system of periodic popular election, will always 
result in the future, as it has already resulted in the 
past, in "machine politics." 

That is the lesson of our experience in the last 
century. 

Furthermore, we have seen, that it is at least pos- 
sible — to devise a scheme of genuine democratic 
government; a scheme, under which the entire 
community will be a single organism; a political 
unit, with its combined concentrated forces com- 
pacted under a single control, that of the popular 
assembly. 

But we must go even further, if we expect to 
convince this conservative American people of 
the necessity of a radical fundamental change 
in the framework of its political institutions. We 
must show — not merely that our present polit- 
ical system produces bad results — but we must 
also show, that these results are so large, as to 
call for immediate action on our part. We must 
show the magnitude of these results. And, if pos- 
sible, we must show their magnitude in figures; 
in dollars and cents. For we must bear in mind 
that this American people is intensely practical; 
that practical men always distrust theories and 
theorists; that government is largely a matter of 
ways and means, of money; and that bad political 



118 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

machinery will generally make its evil nature 
apparent in the public balance sheet. 

Consequently, we must at least make the at- 
tempt, to show the cost of " machine politics " in 
money. 

The attempt will now be made. 

The figures here given will mainly concern the 
operations of the national government; and will be 
limited, of necessity, to the operations of a few of 
its departments. From the figures here given, how- 
ever, it will easily be possible to deduce general 
conclusions, as to the money cost of "machine 
politics" in our different state and local govern- 
ments. 

"Machine politics" on a large scale began with 
the opening of the Civil War. Prior to that time, 
the operations of all our governments, national, 
state, and local, involved the handling of com- 
paratively small amounts of money. Then, for the 
first time, did the operations of the national gov- 
ernment furnish a field for fraud and corruption 
on a large scale. Then, for the first time, under 
the administration of Mr. Lincoln, we have the evi- 
dence of the omnipotence of the election machine. 

In connection with the facts now to be related, 
we must continually bear in mind, that Mr. Lin- 
coln's purity of purpose — his personal integrity 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 119 

— and his sincerity and earnestness in using the 
powers of his office for what he deemed the highest 
pubHc interests, are universally conceded. Con- 
sequently, we are compelled to conclude, that if 
he was unable to resist the power of the election 
machine, that power is practically irresistible. 

Immediately after Mr. Lincoln's election began 
the inevitable division of the " spoils," which has 
been, for well nigh a century, the invariable sequel 
of the election of a new President. 

Mr. Lincoln's nomination, as is well known, 
was procured by a political barter. It is a well- 
authenticated fact, that a bargain had been made 
by Mr. Lincoln's political friends, at the Chicago 
convention which nominated him, that the vote 
of the Pennsylvania delegation in that conven- 
tion should be paid for — by the appointment of 
Simon Cameron to a seat in the Cabinet. Whether 
or not Mr. Lincoln knew and approved the bargain 
before his election, has been questioned. But it is 
the historic fact, that he carried out the bargain 
afterwards, with full knowledge of the facts, by 
making Mr. Cameron his Secretary of War. 

Mr. Lincoln did this in opposition to the re- 
monstrances of a number of the most reputable 
men in his own party. Those men represented 
to Mr. Lincoln, that the character and reputation 



120 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

of Mr. Cameron were so bad, that no administra- 
tion could endure the disgrace of such an appoint- 
ment. 

The story of Mr. Cameron's appointment to be 
Secretary of War is thus told by Mr. Lincoln's 
biographer : ^ — 

"Cameron had many and formidable enemies, who 
alleged that he was a man notorious for his evil deeds, 
shameless in his rapacity and corruption, and even more 
shameless in his mean ambition to occupy exalted sta- 
tions, for which he was utterly and hopelessly incom- 
petent; that he had never dared to oflFer himseK as a 
candidate before the people of Pennsylvania, but had 
more than once gotten high office from the Legislature 
by the worst means ever used by a politician; and that 
it would be a disgrace, a shame, a standing oflFence to 
the country, if Mr. Lincoln should consent to put him 
in his cabinet." 

As to Mr. Lincoln's action, the biographer con- 
tinues the story from the statement of one of the 
actors — Colonel M'Clure: — 

"I do not know that any one went there to oppose 
the appointment but myself. . . . Lincoln's character 
for honesty was considered a complete guaranty against 
such a suicidal act. No efforts had therefore been made 
to guard against it. ... I hastily got letters from Gov- 
ernor Curtin, Secretary Slifen, Mr. Wilmot, Mr. Day- 
ton, Mr. Stevens, and started. I took no affidavits with 
me, nor were any specific charges made against him 
by me, or by any of the letters I bore; but they all sus- 

* Lamon's Life of Lincoln, p. 459. 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 121 

tained me in the allegation that the appointment would 
disgrace the administration and the country, because of 
the notorious incompetency and public and private vil- 
lany of tlie candidate. I spent four hours with Mr. Lin- 
coln alone ; and the matter was discussed fully and 
frankly. Although he had previously decided to ap- 
point Cameron, he closed our interview by a reconsid- 
eration of his purpose, and the assurance that within 
twenty-four hours he would write me definitely on the 
subject." 

Mr. Lincoln's own opinion of Mr. Cameron 
was so bad as to make him think that the mere 
appointment of Mr. Cameron by him to a cabi- 
net position would of itself destroy his own great 
reputation for honesty. According to his biogra- 
pher, he said: — 

"All that I am in the world — the Presidency and 
all else — I owe to that opinion of me which the peo- 
ple express when they call me Honest Old Abe. Now 
what will they think of their honest Abe when he 
appoints Simon Cameron to be his familiar adviser ? " 

At the time of Mr. Cameron's appointment, 
we were at the opening of a great war, on which 
depended the nation's existence. The War Sec- 
retaryship was the most important office in the 
nation. It demanded a man of great ability, and 
of unquestioned integrity. Success in the war 
would be largely a matter of money. Upright 



122 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

and able admiDistration of the War Office was 
certain to be the most important thing in the entire 
administration. Nevertheless, Mr. Lincoln gave 
the headship of the War Office to a man who was 
notoriously and scandalously corrupt. Of that 
fact he was fully advised in advance. He was fully 
warned, as to the necessary and inevitable conse- 
quences of his action. Nevertheless, he made the 
appointment. It may be conceded, that Mr. Lin- 
coln had good intentions. Yet there is the record 
of his action. 

Other cabinet appointments were made in like 
manner, for like reasons. It cannot be said with 
accuracy, that a single one of Mr. Lincoln's cab- 
inet appointments was made by reason of the 
jQtness of the appointee for his official work. 

As already said, Mr. Lincoln's purity of pur- 
pose and earnestness of endeavor are conceded, on 
all hands. We must assume, that he did every- 
thing in his power to insure an honest administra- 
tion of our national affairs. For he, and every 
intelligent man, well understood that success in 
putting down the rebellion was largely a ques- 
tion of money; and that it was of vital necessity 
that the strictest economy should be used in the 
management of our Army and Navy, and of the 
nation's finances. 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 123 

Bearing all that in mind, let us see what were 
the practical results of his so-called "political" 
appointments. 

The government was compelled to purchase 
large quantities of material of all kinds, arms and 
supplies for the Army, and vessels for the trans- 
port service and the Navy. To the ordinary lay 
mind it would seem natural and reasonable, that 
vessels to be purchased should be fitted for the 
use to which they were to be put. The arms to be 
bought should have been such as could be of ser- 
vice. It was very clear that the men, of all others, 
who would be the best judges of what was needed 
by the two branches of the service in the way of 
ships and arms, would be the officers of the Navy 
and Army. And the officers of the Navy, in the 
beginning, had little else on which they could well 
be employed except these very purchases. For 
we had no vessels for them to command. Never- 
theless, for some reason best known to the men who 
conducted the affairs of the country at the time, 
the political friends of congressmen and cabinet 
members were found, of all men in the United 
States, to be the only ones having the needed 
skill and knowledge which fitted them to make 
purchases for the government. 

The purchasing of vessels for the Navy De- 



124 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

partment at the port of New York was taken from 
the commandant of the navy-yard there, and trans- 
ferred to a man of whom a House of Representa- 
tives Committee ^ say, that he had 

"never had the slightest experience in the new and 
responsible duties which he was called upon to dis- 
charge, either in the naval service, the building or buy- 
ing and selling of ships, or in any pursuit calling for 
a knowledge of their construction, capacity, or value, 
never having spent an hour in either." 

The Committee further say that 

"The evidence was abundant before the committee, 
that if it had been necessary to obtain the services of 
any gentlemen outside of the navy itself, those gen- 
tlemen, combining from experience and education the 
knowledge most calculated to fit them for this duty, 
independent of outside aid, could have been secured 
without the slightest difficulty for a salary not exceeding 
$5000 for the year." 

The other points of the affair can be best given 
in an extract from the Committee's report. They 
say of this purchasing agent that he 

"received as compensation during the period of seven 
weeks previous to the 6th day of September, when this 
testimony was taken, the enormous sum of $51,584, as 
admitted by himself before the committee. When this 

^ House of Representatives, Thirty-seventh Congress, Sec- 
ond Session, Report No. 2. 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 125 

testimony was taken, information of its extraordinary 
character and import was communicated to the depart- 
ment, in the hope that an abuse so glaring, when pointed 
out, might be corrected. Yet, notwithstanding the de- 
partment became thus possessed of the information that 
its own agent was, by this system of commissions, amass- 
ing a private fortune, the committee have been sur- 
prised to learn, from a recent communication from the 
Navy Department furnishing them with the numbers 
and prices of vessels purchased by Mr. Morgan for the 
Government since said 6th day of September, that the 
cost of those thus purchased by him amounts in the 
aggregate to the sum of $1,736,992. If he has received 
the same rate of compensation since as before that date, 
there must be added to the sum of $51,584 paid him be- 
fore that date the further compensation of $43,424 for 
services rendered since, making in all the sum of $95,000 
paid to a single individual for his services as agent of 
the Government since the 15th day of July, a period 
of four and one-half months." 

And the Committee add: — 

"The committee do not find in the transaction the 
less to censure in the fact that this arrangement be- 
tween the Secretary of the Navy and Mr. Morgan was 
one between brothers-in-law." 

Five thousand carbines belonging to the gov- 
ernment were sold to a private individual for $3.50 
apiece, and were immediately repurchased for 
the government for $22 apiece, making a differ- 
ence on this one transaction of nearly $90,000. 



126 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

One lot of these carbines went through this pro- 
cess of sale and repurchase twice. They were first 
sold by the government at a price merely nom- 
inal, and were repurchased at $15 apiece. They 
were again sold by the government at the price 
above stated, of $3.50, and again repurchased 
at $22. How many other times these arms did 
service under the purchase and sale treatment, 
or whether they ever did service in the field, did 
not appear. 

A certain contractor testified that he furnished 
supplies to the government to the amount of 
$800,000, on which he made a profit of over forty 
per cent. The purchases from him were made 
in direct violation of law. 

Two politicians in New York, one of them an 
old personal and political friend of the Secretary of 
War, had two million dollars of government money 
placed in a private banking-house, subject to their 
order for the purchase of supplies, in direct vio- 
lation of law. Two hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars of this money they spent without ever 
accounting for any of it. It was in evidence, that 
of this amount ten thousand dollars was paid 
for a large quantity of groceries supplied by a 
dealer in hardware. Another sum of over twenty 
thousand dollars was paid for "straw hats and 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 127 

linen trousers." But no one in the Army saw any 
of our troops decked in this fantastic costume. 
Two steamers were purchased by a friend of high 
government officials for about one hundred thou- 
sand dollars, and were immediately sold to the 
government for two hundred thousand dollars. 
One steamer was chartered to the government 
for two thousand five hundred dollars a day; 
and the government paid one hundred and thirty- 
five thousand dollars for a period during which 
she lay at a wharf before she was ever once used. 
One railroad company received for transporta- 
tion in one year from the government over three 
million five hundred thousand dollars, being an 
excess over the company's entire earnings for the 
previous year of one million three hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars, or about forty per cent. 
And the rates charged for this transportation were 
about thirty-three and one-third per cent in ex- 
cess of the rates paid by private individuals. The 
brother-in-law of the president of this railroad 
company was Mr. Lincoln's Secretary of War. 

These are merely single instances of the way 
in which the people's money was wasted by the 
party leaders and their political supporters. 

That was not all. In every war, under any 
form of government, there has generally been more 



128 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

or less waste of the public money. It remained 
for the great republic of modern times, to give to 
the world one of the most remarkable exhibitions 
of the wholesale squandering of public funds and 
public property recorded in history. Not only did 
we waste our own men and money, but we fed 
and clothed the army of the enemy we were fight- 
ing. The Confederate forces got the very supplies 
which kept them in the field, by trade carried on 
through the lines under written permits given by 
the President of the United States. 

The report of a Congressional Committee states : * 

"The testimony before the committee discloses the 
shameless and treasonable character of the trade which 
has been carried on within the rebel lines with rebel agents, 
and for the tise of rebel armies. The amount of supplies 
necessary for the support of rebel armies, which, under 
the cover of this trade, has been sent through the rebel lines 
at New Orleans, Memphis, Norfolk, and other places, 
almost surpasses belief. Negotiations have been entered 
into and correspondence carried on by citizens of the 
United States with rebel agents to deliver for the rebel 
government provisions and other necessary articles to 
sustain the rebel armies in return for cotton." 

And the report adds : — 

"General Canby states that the rebel armies east 
and west of the Mississippi River have been mainly 

* Report on "Trade with Rebellious States," Thirty-eighth 
Congress, Second Session, House of Representatives, Report 
No. 24. 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 129 

supplied for the last twelve months by the unlawful trade 
carried on on that river. " ^ 

But political influence went further than con- 
trolling the Treasury and ' the War and Navy 
departments. It controlled the appointment of 
our generals. Machine poUticians aspired to the 
glory of the soldier, for political purposes. They 
were men without either education or experience. 
One of them at least had never in his life so much 
as handled a battalion or a company on a parade 
ground. Men of this kind were given generals' 

^ Here is a specimen of the permits under which this trade 
was carried on : — 

"An authorized agent of the Treasury Department having, 
with the approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, contracted 
for the cotton above mentioned, and the parties having agreed 
to sell and deliver the same to said agent, 

"It is ordered that the cotton, moving in compliance with 
and for fulfilment of said contract, and being transported to 
said agent or under his direction, shall be free from seizure or 
detention by any officer of the Government; and command- 
ants of military departments, districts, posts, and detachments, 
naval stations, gunboats, flotillas, and fleets, will observe this 
order, and give the said . . . their agents, transports, and means 
of transportation, free and unobstructed passage, for the pur- 
pose of getting said cotton, or any part thereof, through the 
lines, and safe conduct within our lines, while the same is 
moving, in compliance with regulations of the Secretary of the 
Treasury, and for fulfilment of said contract with the agent of 

the Government. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN." 

Committee Report No. 24, Second Session, Thirty-eighth 
Congress. 



130 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

commissions, and the command of armies; and 
through their ignorance and incapacity thousands 
of better men than themselves lost their hves. 

In all departments, throughout the war, the 
plunder of the treasury by machine politicians 
proceeded on true machine principles. The peo- 
ple's offices were used, not for the service of the 
people, but for the service of the election machine, 
to reward machine men for machine work. 

Let us see what was the cost, in part, to the 
people of the United States of these methods. 

The cost in life of our Civil War, on the North- 
ern side alone, making no account of the losses 
of the Confederates, according to the official rec- 
ords, was as follows: — 

Killed in battle 44,238 

Wounds and injuries 49,205 

Suicide, etc 526 

Disease 186,216 

Unknown causes 24,184 

Total 304,369 

The number of men withdrawn from their 
ordinary pursuits, on the rolls of the Northern 
Army alone, again not taking into account the 
Confederates, was as follows: — 

July 1, '61 186,751 

January 1, '62 675,917 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 131 

March 31, '62 637,126 

Jan. 1, '63 918,191 

Jan. 1, '64 860,757 

Jan. 1, '65 959,460 

Mar. 31, '65 880,086 

May 1, '65 1,000,516 

The money expenditure of the national govern- 
ment alone, occasioned by the Civil War, for the 
Army and Navy alone, as it partially appears from 
our treasury records, was as follows : — 

War Department ex- 
penditures, years 
1862-1870 inclu- 
sive, $3,351,352,829.15 

Deduct former nor- 
mal yearly expen- 
diture for those 
years, 144,000,000.00 

Gives the War De- 
partment expendi- 
tures due to the 
Civil War, $3,207,352,829.15 

Navy expenditures, 
years 1862-1870 
inclusive, $456,100,149.81 

Deduct normal 
yearly expendi- 
ture for those years, 99,000,000.00 

Navy expenditures 

due to Civil War, 357,100,149.81 

Pensions paid years 
1862-1899, inclu- 
sive, 2,436,989,461.35 

Interest on public 
debt, years 1862- 

1899 inclusive, 2,741,571,609.71 

Total $8,743,014,050.02 



13i8 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

Aside from these expenditures of the national gov- 
ernment, immense sums of money were paid out 
by the States, and by cities and towns all over the 
country, for war purposes. 

Three hundred thousand lives is far below the 
fact, as the mere expenditure of life. 

Nine thousand millions of dollars is doubtless far 
below the fact, as the mere expenditure of money, 
due to the war, by the general government alone. 

More than half of that expenditure of Hfe and 
money was wholly needless; and was due to the 
ignorance and incapacity of the machine politi- 
cians, who were then in control of the national 
government. At least one half that amount of 
money, four thousand five hundred millions of 
dollars, was simply thrown away, or stolen, through 
tlie incompetence and dishonesty of our national 
officials. From the beginning to the end of the 
war the waste of the people's money continued 
unchecked. It was a carnival of corruption. 

General Schofield, as high authority as could be 
cited, has written: ^ — 

"It is capable of demonstration, to the satisfaction 
of any average military mind, that our late war might 
have been brought to a successful conclusion in two 
years instead of four, and at half the cost in vien and 

1 Cited in "The Army of the United States," by President 
Garfield, NartJi American Review, May-June, 1878. 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 133 

money, if any one soldier of fair ability had been given 
the absolute control of military operations, and of the 
necessary military resources of the country." 

At the time of Mr. Lincoln's appointment of 
Mr. Cameron there was one man, already promi- 
nent, who, more than any other, had shown his 
preeminent fitness for the position of Secretary 
of War. That was Edwin M. Stanton. He was 
a man of great ability and large experience. He 
had already given evidence of unusual adminis- 
trative capacity, and of his loyalty to the Union 
cause. Moreover, he had even then made himself 
a national reputation, by the stand he had taken 
in President Buchanan's Cabinet against the sur- 
render of the garrison in Charleston harbor. The 
fitness of the man for the place was so well known, 
and so universally acknowledged, that not long 
afterwards Mr. Lincoln found himself under a 
virtual necessity of appointing Mr. Stanton to be 
the head of the War Department. 

Instead of Mr. Stanton, we had Simon Cameron. 

At the same time, a large number of appoint- 
ments were made to high positions in the Army, of 
men who had no military experience, and no fit- 
ness for high commands, most of them Republican 
politicians. We had at that time in the country 
a large number of West Point graduates ; men 



134 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

who were preeminently fit to handle the armies of 
the United States on scientific military methods. 
Those men were the ones, evidently, who should 
have been given all of the high commands in the 
Army. War should be waged by soldiers, not by 
politicians; by men who have the knowledge and 
training of soldiers. We had such men. They 
were the men who should have had the control 
of army affairs. Instead of putting the control of 
army affairs in the hands of those men, it was put 
in the hands of corrupt party politicians; of men 
like Simon Cameron. 

The manner in which army affairs were man- 
aged can be best described by quoting from let- 
ters written at the time by Secretary Stanton. 
The first is one to General Dix: — 

"This will be handed you by Mr. Andrews, with 
whom you are acquainted. He will inform you of the state 
of affairs here. They are desperate beyond conception. 
If there be any remedy — any shadow of hope to pre- 
serve this government from utter and absolute extinc- 
tion, it must come from New York without delay." ^ 

On March 10, he wrote : " The scramble for 
office is terrific." 

On March 15, he wrote : " The pressure for 

office continues unabated; every department is over- 

* Gorham's Life and Public Services of Edtdn M. Stanton, 
p. 199. 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 135 

run, and by the time that all the patronage is dis- 
tributed, the Republican-party will be dissolved." 

General Sherman, in his Memoirs, gives the 
following account of a call he made on President 
Lincoln in March, 1861, when his brother. Senator 
Sherman, introduced him to the President. The 
Senator said, "Mr. President, this is my brother. 
Colonel Sherman, who is just up from Louisiana, 
and he may give you information you want." 

"'Ah,' said Mr. Lincoln, 'how are they getting along 
down there ?' I said, 'They think they are getting along 
swimmingly; they are preparing for war.' 'Oh, well,' 
said he, 'I guess we will manage to keep house.' I was 
silenced; said no more to him, and we soon left. I 
was sadly disappointed, and remember that I broke 
out on John, damning the politicians generally; saying, 
'You have got things in a hell of a fix, and you may get 
them out as well as you can,' adding that the country 
was sleeping on a volcano that might burst forth at any 
moment. " 

A letter of General Dix to Mr. Stanton, dated 
May 28, 1861, reads as follows: — 

"Ever since I wrote you last I have been busy night 
and day, and am a good deal worn out by my labors on 
the Union Defense Committee and by superintending 
the organization and equipment of nine regiments, six 
of which I have sent to the field, leaving three to go to 
the field to-morrow and the day afterward. The post 
of Major-General of Volunteers was tendered to me 
by Governor Morgan, and I could not decUne without 



136 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

laying myself open to the imputation of hauling down 
my flag, — a thing altogether inadmissible. So I am 
in harness for the war, although the administration takes 
it easy, for I have not yet been accepted, and there are 
rumors that there are too many Democratic epaulettes 
in the field. There seems to be no fear at Washington 
that there are too many Democratic knapsacks. New 
York has about 15,000 men at the seat of war, under 
Sanford, who has gone on temporarily. How is it, my 
dear sir, that New York is always overlooked, or nearly 
always, except when there are burdens to be borne ? As 
to this generalship, it was unsought, and I am indif- 
ferent about it entirely. I am willing to give my strength 
and life, if need be, to uphold the government against 
treason and rebellion; but if the administration pre- 
fers some one else to command New York troops, no 
one will acquiesce so cheerfully as myself." 

Another letter of Mr. Stanton, of June 8, 1861, 

reads as follows: — 

"Well, every patriotic heart has rejoiced at the en- 
thusiastic spirit with which the nation has aroused to 
maintain its existence, and all the peculation and fraud 
that immediately sprang up to prey upon the volunteers 
and grasp the public money as plunder and spoil, has cre- 
ated a strong feeling of loathing and disgust, and no 
sooner had the appearance of an imminent danger passed 
away and the administration recovered from its panic, 
than a determination became manifest to give a strict 
party direction to the great national movement. After a 
few Democratic appointments, as Butler and Dix, every- 
thing has been devoted to back Republican interests. This 
has already excited strong reactionary feeling, not only in 
New York but also in the Western States. 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 137 

"General Dix informs me that he has been so badly 
treated by Cameron, that he intends immediately to 
resign. This will be followed by a withdrawal of finan- 
cial confidence and support to a very great extent. 
Indeed, the course of things for the last four weeks has 
been such as to excite distrust in every department of 
the government." 

Another letter of Mr. Stanton, to General Dix, 
is as follows : — 

"The meeting of the 24th of April, in New York, 
has become a national epoch, for it was a manifestation 
of patriotic feeling beyond any example in history. To 
that meeting, the courage it inspired and the organized 
action it produced, this government will owe its salva- 
tion, if sared it can be. To the general gratification of 
the country at your position as chairman of the Union 
Committee, there were added to my breast a feeling of 
security and succor that until that time was unknown. 
No one can imagine the deplorable condition of this 
city and the hazard of the government, who did not 
witness the weakness and panic of the administration 
and the painful imbecility of Lincoln. We looked to 
New York in that dark hour as our only deliverance 
under Providence, and thank God it came. The up- 
rising of the people of the United States to maintain their 
government and crush rebellion has been so grand, so 
mighty in every element that I feel it a blessing to be 
alive and witness it. The action of your city especially 
filled me with admiration, and proves the right of New 
York to be called the Empire City. But the picture has 
a dark side — dark and terrible from the corruption 
that surrounds the War Department and seems to poison 



138 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

with infamous breath the very atmosphere. Millions of 
New York capital, the time, strength and perhaps lives 
of thousands of patriotic citizens will be wanted to crush 
a ravenous crew. On every side the government and 
soldiers are pillaged; arms, clothing, transportation and 
provisions are each and all subject of peculation and spoil. 
On one side, the waves of treason and rebellion are 
madly dashing, on the other is the yawning gulf of na- 
tional bankruptcy. Our cause is the greatest that any 
generation of men was ever called upon to uphold. It 
would seem to be God's cause, and must triumph. But 
when we witness venality and corruption growing in 
power every day, and controlling the millions of money 
that should be a patriotic sacrifice for national deliver- 
ance, and treating the treasury of the nation as a booty 
to be divided among thieves, hope dies away. Deliver- 
ance from this danger must also come from New York. 
Those who are unwilling to see blood shed, lives lost, 
treasure wasted in vain, must take speedy measures to 
reform the evil before it is too late. 

"Of military affairs I can form no judgment. Every 
day affords fresh proof of the design to give the war a 
party direction. The army appointments appear, with 
two or three exceptions only, to be bestowed on persons 
whose only claim is their Republicanism — broken-down 
politicians without experience, ability or other merit. 
Democrats are readily repelled or scowled upon with 
jealous and ill-concealed aversion. The western demo- 
cracy have abeady become disgusted, and between the 
corruption of some of the Republican leaders and the 
selfish ambition of others, some great disaster may soon 
befall the nation. How long will the democracy of New 
York tolerate these things ? 

"The navy is in a state of hopeless imbecility and 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 139 

is believed to be far from being purged from the treach- 
ery that has ah-eady occasioned so much shame and 
dishonor." 

So much for the administration of Army and 
Navy affairs. 

Let us turn to that of our foreign relations. 

From the outset, it was apparent to all men of 
intelligence, that the point of most serious danger 
was England. No doubt, for many years we had 
heard the expressions of English horror over the 
evils of African slavery. Intelligent men, however, 
were well aware, that the action of England would 
be determined almost entirely by considerations of 
the pound sterling; or, in the words of Tennyson, 
by the " jingling of the guinea." 

All that was required in order to enlist the moral 
sympathies of England on our side, was for us to 
furnish them with cotton; keep their mills busy 
manufacturing arms and clothing for our Army and 
Navy; employ their shipyards in the construction of 
ships for us, instead of for the Confederacy; and pay 
them lavishly in our government bonds bearing a 
high rate of interest. With our immense superior- 
ity in men and money, this policy was one of com- 
parative simplicity and ease. 

Thereupon, all England would have resounded 
with paeans in praise of freedom. Wilberforces would 



140 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

have arisen in every constituency declaiming on the 
iniquities of slavery, and the duty of the English 
people to support the cause of individual and na- 
tional liberty. Professor Freeman's monumental 
work, " The History of Federal Governments from 
the Formation of the Achaian League to the Dis- 
ruption of the United States," would have been en- 
titled "The Evolution of Democracy." Mr. Glad- 
stone, instead of proclaiming that JeflFerson Davis 
"had made a nation," would have exulted over the 
fact that President Lincoln had saved one, and had 
destroyed slavery.* The hands of John Bright 
would have been strengthened, and he would have 
been able to dominate the policy of England in 
reference to our struggle to enforce the supremacy 
of the Constitution and the laws. 

Obviously, therefore, England should have been 
the objective of our most able and adroit diplo- 
macy; and should have had the most careful 

^ Mr. Morley in his life leaves this episode precisely where 
it was before Mr. Gladstone, in July, 1896, attempted to explain 
his famous utterance. But the explanation goes only so far as 
to apologize for the indiscretion of such an utterance by a cab- 
inet minister. It leaves Mr. Gladstone where he was before — 
in the matter of sympathy. And Mr. Gladstone adds, with 
charming naivete: "It illustrates vividly that incapacity which 
my mind so long retained, and perhaps still exhibits, an inca- 
pacity of viewing subjects all round, in their extraneous as well 
as in their internal properties, and thereby of knowing when to 
he silent and when to speak.'" 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 141 

thought at the hands of the Washington authori- 
ties. 

Let us see what was the fact. 

Mr. Charles Francis Adams, our Minister at the 
Court of St. James, has left in his Diary an account 
of his interview with President Lincoln and the 
Secretary of State, when he went to Washington, 
to receive his appointment, and his instructions for 
the duties of his mission. His son gives it as follows : 

"The secretary introduced the minister to the Presi- 
dent, and the appointee of the last proceeded to make the 
usual conventional remarks, expressive of obligation, 
and his hope that the confidence implied in the appoint- 
ment he had received might not prove to have been mis- 
placed. They had all by this time taken chairs; and the 
tall man listened in silent abstraction. When Mr. Adams 
had finished, — and he did not take long, — the tall man 
remarked in an indifferent, careless way that the appoint- 
ment in question had not been his, but was due to the 
secretary of state ; and that it was to ' Governor Seward ' 
rather than to himself that Mr. Adams should express 
any sense of obligation he might feel; then, stretching 
out his legs before him, he said, with an air of great re- 
lief, as he swung his long arms to his head: ' Well, gov- 
ernor, I've this morning decided that Chicago post-of- 
fice appointment.' Mr. Adams and the nation's foreign 
policy were dismissed together! Not another reference 
was made to them, Mr. Lincoln seemed to think that 
the occasion called for nothing further; as to Mr. Adams, 
it was a good while before he recovered from his dis- 
may; he never recovered from his astonishment, nor did 



142 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

the impression then made ever wholly fade from his 
mind. Indeed, it was distinctly apparent in the eulogy 
on Seward delivered by him at Albany twelve years 
afterwards." 

The war was managed, precisely as the so-called 
"war" with Spain was managed, by party poli- 
ticians, for party purposes. It is not intended, that 
President Lincoln intentionally betrayed his trust. 
Simply, he was out of place. He was a great ora- 
tor; a man with the large views, and high pur- 
poses, of a statesman. But he had no appreciation 
of the men and methods needed for the conduct 
of a war. The government then needed at its head 
a man with the gifts and training of an executive. 
We wanted — a leader. We had — a millstone. 

The results of this kind of administration were 
only what were to be expected. The success of 
the Union arms depended upon the wise and eco- 
nomical handling of men, material, and money. 
The superiority in resources of the North over 
the South was vast and overwhelming. The re- 
sult of the contest never ought to have been doubt- 
ful. It never would have been doubtful, with an 
honest and eflScient administration at Washington. 
But the corrupt and needless expenditure of life 
and money, that continued from the very outset of 
military operations through the very last campaign. 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 143 

was such as to make the result of the war doubt- 
ful up to the end. 

As to this fact, let us hear General Schofield. 
In his "Forty-six Years in the Army," he says: — 

" In a great and prolonged war it is not possible for a 
people to contribute all the means required at the time. 
The amount of taxation would be greater than any 
people could bear. Hence the government must bor- 
row the necessary money. This cannot be done with- 
out national credit. If credit declines, rates of interest 
and discount on securities increase until the national 
debt reaches its limit and no more money can be bor- 
rowed. In short, the nation becomes bankrupt. 

"This was the condition of the United States before 
the close of the late Civil War, with a million of men on 
the muster and pay rolls, including several great armies of 
veteran troops in the field, while the Confederate army was 
reduced to a very small portion of that number. The Union 
was on the very verge of failure, because Government 
could no longer raise money to pay its troops, purchase sup- 
plies or make any further use of its magnificent armies. 
This astounding fact was confided to the Generals of the 
army in the Winter of 1864-1865, by the Secretary of 
War, who then said the Rebellion mtist be suppressed 
in the coming Spring campaign or the effort abandoned 
because the resources of the Treasury were exhausted." 

In view of these facts, it will be interesting to 
read General Schofield's further comments on the 
financial policy of the administration. He says: — 

"In a great country with unlimited resources like 
the United States, resort to loans would seem to be 



144 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

entirely unnecessary. However this may be, and what- 
ever may be the necessity in any case, a forced loan 
without interest is simply robbery to the extent of 
unpaid interest, even if the principal is paid. And a rob- 
ber cannot be expected to have much credit left after 
his robbery becomes known to the world. 

" The issue of legal tender notes during the Civil War 
was of this character. The country received a deadly 
blow to its financial credit when that policy was adopted. 

" It is now perfectly well known to all who have taken 
the pains to study the subject that this false and prac- 
tically dishonest policy, however innocently it may have 
been conceived, cost the United States many hundreds 
of millions of dollars and came very near bringing dis- 
aster upon the Union cause. One of the most astound- 
ing spectacles ever presented in the history of the world 
was that presented by this country. It went into the 
war practically free from debt, and came out of it with 
a debt which seemed very large to be sure, and was in 
fact nearly twice as large as it ought to have been, 
yet so small in comparison with the country's resources 
that it could be paid off in a few years. It went into 
the war practically without an army, and came out of 
the war with its military strength not even yet fully devel- 
oped. It had more than a million of men, nearly all veter- 
ans, in the ranks and could have raised a million more, 
if necessary, without seriously interfering with the indus- 
tries of the country. Yet, in four short years, a false 
financial policy destroyed the national credit, brought its 
Treasury to bankruptcy, and thus reduced a great people 
to a condition in which they could no longer make any use 
of their enormous military strength." 

The end of the war came. The result was mili- 
tary success for the government, though at a heavy 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 145 

cost in life and money, largely needless. The 
armies of the Confederacy had been worn out. 
Their suppUes had been exhausted. The strategy 
of attrition, for it was nothing else, had finally 
brought the conflict to a close. 

With the end of the war, the waste of the na- 
tional resources ought to have come to an end. 
Corruption in the affairs of the treasury con- 
nected with the war ought then to have ceased. 

There was, however, a still further field for 
plunder, yet to be discovered by the machine 
poUticians. It was in the matter of pensions. 

The expenditure by the national government 
for pensions in the year 1860 was $1,100,802.32. 
Previous to that year, from the year 1845, there 
were only two years in which the expenditure for 
pensions exceeded two milUons of dollars. Those 
two years were 1851 and 1852, shortly after the 
war with Mexico. 

Thereafter, the annual expenditure for pen- 
sions was as follows: — 

For the year 1861 $1,034,599.73 

For the year 1862 852,170.47 

For the year 1863 1,078,513.36 

For the year 1864 4,985,473.90 

For the year 1865 16,347,621.34 

For the year 1866 15,605,549.88 

For the year 1867 20,936,551.71 



146 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

For the year 1868 $23,782,386.78 

For the year 1869 28,476,621.78 

For the year 1870 28,340,202.17 

For the year 1871 34,443,894.88 

For the year 1872 28,533,402.76 

For the year 1873 29,359,426.86 

For the year 1874 29,038,414.66 

For the year 1875 29,456,216.22 

For the year 1876 28,257,395.69 

For the year 1877 27,963,752.27 

In other words, for the year 1877, twelve years 
after the end of the Civil War, the annual expendi- 
ture for pensions was only slightly over $27,000,000, 

Beyond any reasonable doubt, at that time 
there had been ascertained the full number of all 
persons, of every kind and description, whether 
men who had served in the Army or Navy, or their 
widows, or their children, or persons dependent 
upon them for support, who had any legal or moral 
claim upon the nation, by reason of injuries or 
diseases suffered in our Civil War. It is a virtual 
certainty — that the expenditure for pensions in the 
year 1877, already stated from the official records 
at a little over twenty-seven millions of dollars, 
was high-water mark, for any rightful payments by 
our national government to any and all persons, 
by reason of disease or disability of any kind, in- 
curred in the military or naval service. 

From that time, however, there began a large 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 147 

increase in the expenditures for pensions. Most of 
this increase was undoubtedly fraudulent, created 
by the corrupt action of our national officials at 
Washington. The figures for the period subsequent 
to the one already given are as follows : — 

For the year 1878 $27,137,019.08 

For the year 1879 35,121,482.39 

For the year 1880 56,777,174.44 

For the year 1881 50,059,279.62 

For the year 1882 61,345,193.95 

For the year 1883 66,012,573.64 

For the year 1884 55,429,228.06 

For the year 1885 56,102,267.49 

For the year 1886 63,404,864.03 

For the year 1887 75,029,101.79 

For the year 1888 80,288,508.77 

For the year 1889 87,624,779.11 

For the year 1890 106,936,855.07 

For the year 1891 124,415,951.40 

For the year 1892 134,583,052.79 

For the year 1893 159,357,557.87 

For the year 1894 141,177,284.96 

For the year 1895 141,395,228.87 

For the year 1896 139,434,000.98 

For the year 1897 141,053,164.63 

For the year 1898 147,452,368.61 

For the year 1899 139,394,929.07 

For the year 1900 140,877,316.02 

For the year 1901 139,323,621.99 

For the year 1902 138,488,559.73 

For the year 1903 138,425,646.07 

The magnitude of the fraud perpetrated upon 



148 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

the United States Treasury, in this matter of pen- 
sions, will appear more clearly from the following 
figures : — 

In the twenty years from 1879 to 
1898 inclusive the total amount paid 
by the government on account of 
the pensions was $1,928,352,000.00 

The amount paid out for pensions 
in the year 1877 was, as already 
stated, $27,963,752.27. 

Payments for the twenty years 
succeeding 1878 at that rate would 
have amounted to 546,683,441.40 

The difference between these fig- 
ures, which difference will give us 
the figures of the fraud perpetrated 
in this single matter $1,381,668,558.60 

Practically the whole of this large amount of 
money has been stolen from the United States Trea- 
sury, by fraud on the part of the officials of our 
national government, who were charged with the 
protection of our public treasury. 

This position will appear more clearly, if a 
short statement is now made of the different 
stages of pension legislation. 

Under the Act of July 14, 1862, which granted 
pensions for disabilities contracted in the War of 
the Rebellion, the persons primarily entitled to re- 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 149 

ceive pensions were those who had been "disa- 
bled by reason of any wound received or disease 
contracted while in the service of the United States 
and in the line of duty." Widows during widow- 
hood, and children under sixteen were entitled 
to the same pension, in case of death resulting 
from wounds or disease received or contracted. If 
there were no widow or children, any depend- 
ent mother was entitled to a pension. If there 
were no dependent mother, any dependent sisters 
were entitled to a pension. This last right was 
extended to dependent brothers by an act passed 
June 6, 1866. 

High-water mark, under a just and reasona- 
ble pension law, had been reached in 1874 ; 
nine years after the close of the war. After that 
year, the figures decreased gradually, until in 1878 
they amounted to only $27,137,019.08. According 
to the natural course of events, this decrease should 
have continued down to the present time, when 
the pension hst would have been comparatively 
slight. 

But in 1879 the tide was turned in the other 
direction by new legislation. By the acts of Jan- 
uary 25, 1879, and March 3, 1879, arrears of 
pensions were awarded so as to cover the period 
intervening between the date of the disability and 



160 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

the time when the application was granted. Prior 
to this time, the pension, reasonably enough, ran 
only from the time of the grant (unless applied 
for within the first five years after the disability 
occurred). 

The result was that the pension Kst jumped 
from $27,137,019.08 in 1878, to $35,121,482.39 in 
1879. And in 1880, when the new law had had 
time to produce its full effect, the annual expendi- 
tures for pensions amounted to $56,777,174.44. 

The following figures show the effect of that 
change in the law, during the period from 1880 
to 1890: — 

Total amount paid in nine years, from 

1880 to 1889, inclusive $657,101,000 

Yearly average 65,710,000 

Yearly average for preceding period 

from 1865 to 1879, inclusive 26,648,000 

But the greed of the politicians was by ho means 
satisfied by this astounding result. 

By a still later Act of June 27, 1890, an en- 
tirely new class of pensioners was created. The 
former groundwork of the pension system was 
swept away. Under this last Act, any soldier of 
ninety days' service, who became disabled from 
manual labor, no matter how long after quitting 
the service, whether as a result of that service or 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 151 

not, no matter what the nature of his necessities, 
became entitled to a pension. 

The result was immediate and overwhelming, in 
its effects upon the public treasury. In 1890 the 
annual figure of the pension list rose at once to 
$106,936,855.07 from $87,624,779.11 in 1889. In 
1893, it had reached the figure of $159,357,557.87. 

The Act of March 3, 1873, had revised and con- 
solidated the existing Pension Laws. Pensions 
were granted for every disability, occasioned while 
"in the service" and "in the Hue of duty." 

So the law remained until the Act of June 27, 
1890. So it should have remained forever. It was 
as liberal as the largest generosity could dictate. 
No person who had any meritorious claim upon 
the bounty of the people of the United States 
by reason of disease or disability contracted in 
" the service " in the Army or Navy in the Civil 
War could fail to get relief under the laws then 
existing. 

But then came the Act of June 27, 1890, which 
awarded pensions of from $6 to $12 a month 
to all persons who served ninety days or more in 
the Army or Navy, who " are sufferers from a men- 
tal or physical disability of a permanent char- 
acter not the result of their own vicious habits, 
which incapacitates " them from earning a support. 



152 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

That Act further allowed pensions to dependent 
widows and minor children without regard to the 
cause of the soldier's death. 

On the face of it, it is evident no honest purpose 
could possibly have caused the passage of that 
Act. The Act was a fraud from beginning to end. 
Its purpose was a fraud. The result has been to 
legalize the abstraction of many hundreds of mil- 
lions of dollars from the United States Treasury, 
and to constitute a gigantic scheme of public 
plunder. 

But now we come to still more recent action 
of our public authorities in this matter of pensions, 
contained in Order No. 78, issued from the De- 
partment of the Interior on March 15, 1904, under 
the direct act of the President of the United States. 

Order No. 78 reads as follows : — 

"Whereas the Act of June 27, 1890, as amended, 
provides that a claimant shall 'be entitled to receive a 
pension not exceeding $12 per month and not less than 
$6 per month proportioned to the degree of inability 
to earn a support, and in determining such disability 
each and every infirmity shall be duly considered and 
the aggregate of disabilities shown to be rated;' and 
Whereas old age is an infirmity, the average nature and 
extent of which the experience of the Pension Bureau 
has established with reasonable certainty; and 

"Whereas thirty-nine years will have elapsed on 
April 13, 1904, since the Civil War, and there are many 
survivors over sixty-two years of age, now, therefore: 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 153 

"Ordered (1) In the adjudication of pension claims 
under said Act of June 27, 1890, as amended, it shall be 
taken and considered as an evidential fact, if the con- 
trary does not appear, and if all other legal require- 
ments are properly met, that when a claimant has passed 
the age of sixty-two years, he is disabled one-half in 
ability to perform manual labor and is entitled to be 
rated at $6 per month; after sixty -five years at $8 per 
month; after sixty-eight years at $10 per month, and 
after seventy years at $12 per month. 

"(2) Allowance at higher rate not exceeding $12 
per month will continue to be made as heretofore where 
disabihties for age show a condition of inability to per- 
form manual labor. 

" (3) This order shall take effect April 13, 1904, and 
shall not be deemed retroactive. The former rules of 
the Office fixing the different minimum and maximum 
at sixty-five and seventy-five years respectively, are 
hereby modified as above." 

The statement was made by the Acting Com- 
missioner of Pensions, in a letter dated the 21st 
of March, 1904, that, "there are supposed to 
be living to-day about 875,000 ex-Union soldiers 
of the Civil War. Of these there are pensioned 
under the Act of July 14, 1862, known as the 
General Law, about 265,000; and under the 
Act of June 27, 1890, about 428,000, aggregating 
693,000; which deducted from the whole num- 
ber of survivors, leaves 182,000, who have not 
applied for pensions. To state definitely how 
many of this number failed to serve the required 



154 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

ninety days and received honorable discharge 
would be impossible. One fourth seems a fair 
estimate, and reduces the number to 136,500. To 
say that 75,000 of these have reached the age 
of sixty-two, and will apply, seems a reasonable 
estimate. If these 75,000 are all placed on the 
roll at $6 a month or $72 a year, the output for 
pensions will be increased $5,400,000 annually." 

The action of the President in making this 
increase of pension burdens, was an undoubted 
violation of law. Moreover, every well-informed 
man in Washington has known for years, that 
this entire pension business was honeycombed 
with fraud from top to bottom. The action of 
the President had no possible justification. 

But it may be said, these are matters of ancient 
history. They happened, when the machinery of 
our national government was undeveloped; when 
it was subjected to a new and severe strain, for 
which the people were wholly unprepared. No 
such thing, it may be said, could happen to-day, 
with our long experience in the administration 
of large affairs. 

Let us come, then, to more recent history. Let 
us examine a few of the facts from the events of 
the late "war" — so-called — with Spain. 

In the war between Russia and Japan we have 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 155 

had an object lesson, on a large scale, of the 
necessity of thorough preparation and honest 
administration. No doubt, there may be cases, 
where war will be forced upon a people, without 
the opportunity for making due preparation. A 
wise and discreet government, however, will almost 
always be able to avoid war. Or, if not, they will 
postpone it to the latest possible moment, until 
due preparation has been made. 

Before making our recent assault on Spain, 
it would have been quite easy, with our vast re- 
sources in men and money, to delay the so-called 
"war," at least until our Army and Navy should 
have been got in a state of comparatively com- 
plete preparation. Our resources in men, money, 
and material, were practically inexhaustible. A 
slight delay, we know, would have ensued peace, 
and avoided war altogether. But assuming that 
we were to be driven into hostilities, by dema- 
gogues and contractors, delay would at least have 
given time for preparation. 

Let us examine the facts. 

Secretary Alger, in his book entitled, " The Span- 
ish-American War," begins chapter 24, at page 
455, with the following statement: — • 

"It is doubtful if any nation rated as a first-class 
power ever entered upon a war of offense in a condi- 



156 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

tion of less military 'preparation than was the United 
States in 1898. At that time there were not sufficient 
reserve supplies in the possession of the War Depart- 
ment to fully equip 10,000 men in addition to the regular 
army as it then stood." 

"In discussing the unpreparedness for war in an- 
other chapter of this book, it has been shown that a small 
number of Krag-Jorgensen magazine rifles and carbines 
— and the small arm was the only element of equip- 
ment of which there was a reserve — was barely suffi- 
cient to meet the needs of the increase in the regular 
army to 61,000. The entire body of volunteers outside 
of the three volunteer cavalry regiments were at first 
furnished with single-loading Springfield 45-hundredths 
calibre rifles, because there were no other weapons in 
the possession of the War Department. 

"We saw also that the Government of the United 
States did not provide smokeless powder for the Spring- 
field rifles nor for the field artillery in the early part 
of the war, simply for the reason that it had none to 
provide. No type of smokeless powder had been adopted 
even for either of these important adjuncts of war. The 
issuing of smokeless powder was subsequently depend- 
ent upon the output of the few plants in the United 
States capable of manufacturing it. We have seen that 
the War Department did not even own or control a single 
transport, and there was no troop ship on the Atlantic 
or Pacific Oceans available to the United States; that 
many elements of field, siege and sea-coast artillery were 
in a transitional state; that the military establishment 
was palpably deficient in trained artilleryists; that the 
regular army had not been mobilized since the Civil 
War, — one-third of the century since the army as a 
whole or any great part of it had been brought together; 
that there was no strategic staff, and no large number 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 157 

of oflBcers who were experienced in the concentration 
of troops, or in battahon, division, or corps manoeuvres; 
that there was no place in the United States especially 
adapted or prepared for army mobilization, and that 
neither the army nor any officer in it had any experience 
in moving or operating under the new conditions in- 
cidental to a campaign in the Tropics. When the crisis 
so often predicted by military experts at last came, it found 
us totally unprepared for war, and with problems to be 
met at home and abroad, which were both unusual and 
difficult." 

These general statements by the Secretary of 
War, it will be well to reinforce with evidence of 
details. 

The following is an extract from an official let- 
ter written to the Commissary-General of Sub- 
sistence, dated at Siboney, Cuba, July 7, 1898, 
which appears in the Report of the Secretary of 
War for 1898, vol. I, part 1, page 568: — 

"You are already acquainted with the loading at 
Tampa that I hoped to straighten out, when we un- 
loaded somewhere on the Island, but the opportunity 
has not come, although we landed on the 22nd of June, 
at Daiquiri first. The troops were run ashore without 
rations, and I was directed to open depots, 200,000 
rations at each, and feed soldiers, civilian employees, 
Cubans, etc. To do this was simply impossible, but not 
so to try, and we pegged away night and day, meeting 
demands. 

"At Daiquiri there is a pier to which our transports 
could not go, but I took a lighter, transferred from 



158 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

transport thereto, ran in and unloaded, succeeded in 
obtaining not more than about 60,000 rations on shore, 
and these were issued rapidly. But we kept right along. 
Siboney, being about seven miles nearer to Santiago, 
with a bad road, became the base, although furnishing 
no advantage beyond propinquity, as it was in the 
open, no landing, everything depended upon the calm of 
the surf, which was uncertain. Here I would proceed 
as before, running in the lighter as far as I could, then 
transferring stores into a small boat, about ten tons, bor- 
rowed from the Navy, and pulled ashore by hand. To 
supply an army in this way was severe, but when new 
regiments came without a ration, and increasing my 
work, the job looked insurmountable. I worked day and 
night, men getting sick, stevedores striking, new hands 
insufficient and inefficient, supplemented by a rough 
sea, until I got down to 1,000 rations ashore. / got 
through, but the Lord knows how." 

Imagine the situation. An army of nearly twenty 
thousand men dependent for all its supplies on 
a single rowboat. It is difficult to find imbecility 
even remotely approaching this in all mihtary 
history. 

The report of Captain J. G. Newgarden, As- 
sistant Surgeon of the United States Army, with 
the Third United States Cavalry, which appears 
at page 813, of the same volume, contains the 
following, among other statements: — 

"We arrived at Daiquiri, Cuba, on June 22nd, and 
went into camp on the side of a hill about one mile from 
the landing place. I was unable to take any supplies 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 159 

along, not having any transportation for the same. I 
succeeded in obtaining an emergency case from Major 
McCreery while in camp; a mackintosh and a woolen 
blanket constituted my protection from the elements. 
The brigade surgeon offered me for use with the regi- 
ment a medical and surgical pannier, but no transpor- 
tation having been provided for them I was obliged to 
refuse them with regret. On June 25th, I made personal 
and thorough effort to secure transportation and sup- 
plies, but without success. I applied personally to the 
Major-General commanding on board the Seguranca 
and requested a mule for a mount, but was refused." 

The report of the Surgeon-General contains the 
following statement : — 

"The landing of the Fifth army corps on the 27th of 
June, at Daiquiri, was accomplished in a brilliant man- 
ner. The escapes from death by drowning were many. 
That there were only two casualties of this nature is 
really remarkable, all of the circumstances being con- 
sidered. As is well known, the troops went on shore 
with only such rations, shelter tents and cooking appa- 
ratus as they were able to carry on their persons. But 
the same is true of all medical officers and men of the 
Hospital Corps assigned to duty with the several or- 
ganizations. This prevented the transportation of any 
medical supplies beyond what could be carried in the 
hand." 

The Surgeon-General makes the following fur- 
ther statement on page 788 : — 

"Concerning the medical officers and men of the 
hospital corps who were with the expedition, I cannot 



160 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

speak too highly. They shared all the hardships that 
came to the Fifth Army Corps, not only during the as- 
sault and siege of Santiago de Cuba, but in the far more 
trying battle with disease, which day after day ravaged 
our camps and threatened annihilation as a fighting force 
to the gallant troops who had won one of the most splen- 
did victories of history." 

The lack of preparation in our United States 
service in the year 1898 came from precisely the 
same causes which were responsible for the lack 
of preparation in the Russian Army; that is, the 
wholesale fraud and corruption, which had then 
permeated the entire administrative force at Wash- 
ington. That fraud and corruption still continue 
in full force. 

We had for many years been spending enough 
money on both the Army and the Navy, to have 
both in a condition of complete preparation, for 
such a petty affair as the assault on Spain. If the 
money spent on our Army and Navy in the last 
twenty-five years had been spent honestly, with 
reasonable discretion, in ways approved by com- 
petent oflScers of the Army and Navy, we could 
have easily put into the field, on short notice, an 
effective fighting army of one hundred thousand 
men. 

So, too, our Navy, with an honest expenditure 
of the money actually laid out, could have been 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 161 

in the highest degree of efficiency, of ships, guns, 
and men. 

What is to be said, then, of the conduct of the 
men, who, holding high public positions at Wash- 
ington, did all they could to drive this country 
into a conflict, for which its preparation was such 
as has here been stated ? If the conflict had been 
forced upon us, something could be said in their 
behalf. If all the resources of diplomacy had been 
exhausted, there might be something to be said 
in their defense. There is every reason to believe, 
that a courteous continuance of diplomatic ne- 
gotiations would have accomplished in no long 
time the liberation of the Cuban people, which 
has always been given by the politicians as the 
reason for this so-called Spanish War, together 
with every just and legitimate end desired by the 
people of the United States. 

But that was not the purpose, of the men who 
promoted the attack on poor old Spain. They 
were simply determined to have a "war," in order 
to acquire cheap military notoriety and fat gov- 
ernment contracts. It was a war for public plun- 
der and private gain. As was the case with the 
Russo-Japanese war. As is the case with the large 
majority of wars. 

Getting into a war is a thing of great ease. Get- 



162 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

ting out of it may be, and generally is, a thing of 
great difficulty. At all times, under modem con- 
ditions, war requires thorough elaborate prepara- 
tion; organization, drill, discipline; large supplies; 
and above all, adequate transportation. The larger 
the forces engaged, the more helpless they are, 
without organization, discipline, supplies, and 
transportation. An army, under such conditions, 
becomes a mob. The larger it is, the greater is 
its helplessness. 

But a prevalent impression exists that since the 
Spanish affair of 1898 a great advance has been 
made in this matter of preparation; in the matter 
of organization and equipment, of both Army and 
Navy. 

Such is not the fact. No doubt, we are at 
present engaged in the construction of a consid- 
erable number of battleships. No doubt, we are 
manufacturing, and purchasing, large quantities 
of guns, ammunition, and war supplies. There 
is no doubt, ample employment for the con- 
tractors. 

Naval designers of the present day seem to have 
quite forgotten our experiences in the Civil War, 
which settled for a long time to come many of the 
most important problems of naval construction. 
Those experiences, too, furnish most valuable les- 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 163 

sons, of the possibilities of speedy construction, to 
meet new emergencies, or new naval conditions. It 
will be well to recall a few facts gathered there- 
from. 

At the opening of the Civil War, in one field of 
our naval operations, the opening of the Mississippi 
River, and the rending in two of the Confederate 
land forces, it became necessary to construct a fleet 
of iron-clads. The construction of those iron-clads 
was placed in the hands of Captain Eads, who had 
already won high distinction as an engineer, and 
who afterwards achieved an international reputa- 
tion as the first living authority in many branches 
of his profession. 

Eads was employed to construct seven gunboats, 
which according to his contract were to draw six 
feet of water, carry 13 heavy guns each, to be plated 
with 22-inch iron, and have a speed of nine miles 
an hour. The boats were 175 feet long, with 51^ feet 
beam. Their sides sloped at an angle of about 
35 degrees. They were propelled by a stern wheel, 
which was entirely covered by the armor at the rear. 
They were designed to have three bow guns, eight 
broadside guns, and two stern guns. Before these 
seven gunboats were completed. Captain Eads also 
engaged to convert the Benton into an armored 
vessel. The Benton had originally been a snag-boat. 



164 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

She became the most powerful iron-clad of the fleet. 
She had been originally built with two hulls, about 
20 feet apart, braced together. She was converted 
into a war vessel of about 75 feet beam, a greater 
width than that of any war vessel then afloat, and 
she was about 200 feet long. She carried 16 guns, 
seven 32-pounders, two 9-inch guns, and seven 
army 42-pounders. Captain Eads's contract was 
signed on the 7th of August, 1861. It bound him to 
construct the seven vessels first contracted for, 
ready for their crews and armament, in sixty-five 
days. 

The engines to drive that fleet were yet to be built. 
The timber to form their hulls was uncut in the 
forest. The rollers and machinery that were to 
forge their armor were not yet constructed. They 
required twenty-one steam engines and thirty-five 
steam boilers. Within two weeks, not less than four 
thousand men were engaged in the various details 
of their construction. On the 12th of October, 1861, 
the first of those iron-clads, at first named the St. 
Louis, afterwards the De Kalb, with her boilers and 
engines on board, was launched in Carondelet, 
Missouri, forty-five days from the laying of her keel. 
Ten days afterwards, the Carondelet was launched. 
The Cincinnati, Louisville, Mound City, Cairo, and 
Pittsburgh followed in quick succession. The eighth 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 165 

vessel, the Benton^ was undertaken before the hulls 
of the first seven had fairly assumed shape. Within 
one hundred days Captain Eads completed a squad- 
ron, of eight steamers, aggregating five thousand 
tons, capable of steaming nine knots an hour, each 
well armored, fully equipped, and all ready for their 
armament, which was to comprise one hundred 
and seven large guns. 

Meantime, there were hindrances, nearly fatal, 
by the administration officials at Washington. On 
one pretext or another, stipulated payments for the 
work were delayed by the War Department under 
Simon Cameron. The default of the War Depart- 
ment assumed such magnitude that nothing but 
the assistance rendered by Captain Eads's friends, 
after he had exhausted his own large private means, 
enabled him to complete the fleet. The consequence 
was, that the vessels were not completely finished 
until January 15, 1862. That involved a loss of 
time, under extremely critical circumstances, of at 
least three months. That loss of time was caused 
by the inefficiency and corruption of the War De- 
partment. 

The story of the Monitor is quite similar. 

Her keel was laid in the shipyard of Thomas F. 
Rowland in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, in October, 
1861. She was launched on the 30th day of Jauu- 



166 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

ary, 1862. She was commissioned on the 25th 
day of February, 1862. Nine days later she left 
New York for Hampton Roads, where on the 9th 
of March occurred her contest with the Merrimac. 
Her crew was made up largely of men from Dela- 
mater's Iron Works. 

Her preliminary history is interesting. 

At the very opening of hostilities, Norfolk and 
the navy-yard were abandoned by the United 
States authorities. This was early in the spring of 
1861. Norfolk was only about twelve miles from 
Fort Monroe, which was then held by a consider- 
able force of regulars. A few companies of those 
regulars, with a reasonable force of artillery, could 
have occupied and commanded the town and navy- 
yard, and kept open the channel. At the time 
of the abandonment, a large number of ships that 
were there were burnt. There were left at the navy- 
yard, at the time of its evacuation by our forces, 
upwards of twelve thousand heavy guns. These 
guns were distributed through the different points 
in the Confederacy, and subsequently served as 
the armaments for the Confederate fortifications 
all the way from the Potomac to the Mississippi 
River. They were used to fortify Norfolk, and the 
batteries on York, Potomac, James, and Rappa- 
hannock Rivers. They were also put in service at 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 167 

Richmond, Charleston, Mobile, New Orleans, and 
Vicksburg. 

The Merrimac, which was thereafter converted 
into an iron-clad by the Confederate naval author- 
ities, was among the vessels abandoned by the 
Washington administration at this Norfolk navy- 
yard. The South had in its entire territory only 
one place where guns or armor could be manu- 
factured. That was the Tredegar Iron Works at 
Richmond. The Southern States were altogether 
deficient in material, mechanics, and money. 

Commodore Tattnall, formerly in the United 
States Navy, took command of the Norfolk navy- 
yard on the 29th of March, 1861. The Merrimac.^ 
in the mean time, had been put in the dry dock for 
repairs. Steps were taken immediately to convert 
her into an iron-clad. It was early in June, 1861, 
that Mr. Mallory, Confederate Secretary of the 
Navy, decided to reconstruct the Merrimac^ and 
convert her into an iron-clad. The reconstruction 
was immediately begun, with the result that she 
was ready for action before the 8th of March, 1862, 
a period of eight months. 

The possibilities of speedy construction which 
then existed at the North have been already evinced 
by the account of Captain Eads's operations in the 
construction of the iron-clads on the Mississippi 



168 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

River. At the East, means and facilities for naval 
construction were vastly superior to any then avail- 
able in the West. In the city of New York alone 
were several large establishments for the construc- 
tion of marine engines and steam vessels. Living 
at that time in the city of New York was Ericsson, 
who had designed the Princeton for our govern- 
ment, the first ocean-going man-of-war propelled 
by a steam propeller, with her machinery wholly 
under the water Une. Ericsson had had a large ex- 
perience in engineering work of all kinds. He had 
years before designed the locomotive Novelty, which 
competed in England, in the year 1831, with Ste- 
venson's Rocket, and at that time accomplished its 
mile in fifty-three seconds, although the prize of the 
competition was by the liberal-minded English au- 
thorities awarded to Stevenson. Ericsson's genius 
as an engineer had been made prominent in many 
other ways. At this time he already had an inter- 
national reputation. 

Armor-plating, too, was no new thing. It had 
been used in 1858 in the French steam frigate La 
Gloire. The English admiralty had also promptly 
begun the construction of armored war vessels with 
the Warrior. The Warrior had been finished and 
equipped for a considerable time before the open- 
ing of our Civil War. 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 169 

While Mr. Welles, our Secretary of the Navy, and 
his advisers, were considering the question of naval 
armor, it was reported at Washington that the Mer- 
rimac had been raised, cut down to her berth deck, 
and that a very substantial construction of timber 
was being made on that deck, evidently with a view 
to covering it with armor. 

Our Navy Department thereupon waited until 
the month of August, 1861, before they adver- 
tised for plans or offers for iron-clad steam batter- 
ies. Ericsson was already master of the subject. 
He submitted at once proposals to construct ves- 
sels. Those proposals were rejected. Thereafter, 
however, the Secretary of the Navy did accept 
Ericsson's proposal to build an iron-clad steam 
battery, and instructed him to commence its con- 
struction. The result was the Monitor. 

As before stated, the Monitor was a special con- 
struction for a special purpose. The work on the 
Merrimac had already progressed so far that it was 
impossible to provide any vessel of large dimen- 
sions in time to meet her. The sloping sides which 
the Merrimac was to have, which were covered 
with two thicknesses of bar iron, very ingeniously 
combined, were well calculated to resist spherical 
shot, the only kind of solid shot then in use in our 
navy. The shallow waters of the coast in the South- 



170 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

em States required craft of very light draft. Other 
conditions existing at the time practically compelled 
special features in the construction of the Monitor, 
which would not have been adopted by Ericsson 
in war vessels constructed for general purposes. 
The turret, which was the main feature of the Mon- 
itor, was not a new device, but dated back almost 
as far as the first introduction of artillery. Ericsson 
was familiar with all the learning upon the subject. 
He has stated that about 1820 he had been taught 
by his instructor in fortification and gunnery, that 
a position assailable from all sides should be 
defended by mounting the guns on a turn-table. 
Ericsson has published an engraving of the side ele- 
vation of a floating, revolving, circular tower which 
was brought out in the year 1807. The raft, on 
which the turret was mounted, and which caused 
the Monitor to be named a "cheesebox on a raft," 
was simply Ericsson's device for the construction 
of a floating battery, to be used in shallow inside 
waters. It was not his intention that the Monitor 
should be constructed for an ocean-going man- 
of-war. 

The Confederate authorities, as we have already 
seen, took steps for the conversion of the Merri- 
mac in June. It was August before the Washing- 
ton administration took any steps of any kind, so 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 171 

far as the records show, to meet the conditions that 
were then developing, conditions which threatened 
the existence of our Navy, and of our commerce 
all over the world; and it was not until October, 
1861, in spite of all Ericsson's efforts, that the keel 
of the Monitor was laid in Rowland's shipyard at 
Greenpoint, in Brooklyn. It was the 30th of Jan- 
uary, 1862, that she was launched. Thereafter she 
was commissioned on the 25th of February, and 
turned over to the government. Nine days later, 
she left New York for Hampton Roads, and on 
the 9th of March, she had her battle with the Mer- 
rimac, the result of which is a matter of familiar 
history. 

If Ericsson's efforts had been properly sec- 
onded by the Washington administration, the Mon- 
itor could have been ready for sea, fully armed, 
equipped, and manned, within a little more than 
a hundred days from the commencement of her 
construction. 

It is easily seen from the foregoing statement 
that it was the most gross imbecility on the part 
of the Washington administration that in the first 
place permitted the possibility of the Merrimac 
being used by the Confederate authorities; and 
in the second place delayed the construction of 
armor-clad vessels on our part to a time so late as 



172 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

to make it easy for the Confederate naval officers 
to destroy the Cumberland and the Congress, at a 
great loss of life, and to threaten seriously for a 
considerable time the operation of the land forces 
under General McClellan against Richmond. 

The difference between Richmond and Washing- 
ton at that time was simply this : At Richmond mili- 
tary operations both by land and by sea were con- 
trolled and conducted by military men — by soldiers 
and sailors, who had been trained and experienced 
in their respective professions. At Washington, the 
control of both the War and Navy Departments 
was in the hands of incompetent and corrupt poli- 
ticians. Here was the secret of the fact already 
stated, that the Civil War was protracted to a pe- 
riod at least double what was needed for its suc- 
cessful prosecution, and at an expenditure of life 
and money much more than twice anything that 
was requisite. 

The result of the engagement between the Moni- 
tor and Merrimac was such that the London 
"Times" made this declaration: — 

"Whereas we had available for immediate purposes 
149 first-class war ships, we have now two, those two 
being the Warrior and her sister Ironsides. There is not 
now a ship in the English Navy apart from those two 
that it would not be madness to entrust to an engagement 
with that little Monitor." 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 173 

The English Admiralty at once proceeded to 
reconstruct their navy, cutting down their largest 
ships, and converting them into turret and broad- 
side iron-clads. The same course was taken in 
France, which had at that time only one sea-going 
iron-clad man-of-war. The Emperor Napoleon 
at once appointed a* commission to devise plans 
for rebuilding his navy. So did all of the other 
maritime powers. The United States took the lead 
in this movement of naval reconstruction, and at 
the close of our war led all other nations in the 
numbers and eflSciency of its iron-clad fleet. Naval 
warfare experienced a revolution. 

Our present large annual expenditure on our 
Army and Navy is wholly needless. 

We do not need a large regular Army. We 
do need organization, drill, and discipline, after 
regular methods, of our militia. The militia, pro- 
perly organized, equipped, and thoroughly drilled, 
can be, and should be, always have been, and 
always will be, our mainstay and our security, 
for conditions of war. 

Similarly, it is not expedient at the present time, 
that we should go to a large expenditure in the 
construction of modem battleships. The modern 
battleship is an extremely intricate machine, which 
thus far has never stood the test of continuous 



174 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

accurate fire from heavy guns. Thus far, when- 
ever exposed to such fire, it has collapsed. Wit- 
ness the results with the Spanish ships in our 
encounters in 1898 ; the Chinese ships in the battle 
of Yalu; and the Russian ships in the recent en- 
gagements with the Japanese. The vessels of the 
Japanese Navy, and of our own Navy, escaped 
with comparatively little loss almost solely by 
reason of the lack of skillful fire on the part of 
their adversaries. The large battleships have de- 
monstrated themselves to be unwieldy, slow, and 
extremely vulnerable. We already know, that they 
are failures. 

The reason of their being failures is not hard 
to ascertain. The modem battleship violates all 
the fundamental principles of naval construction, 
as advocated and practiced by the greatest naval 
engineers of the last century, Eads, EUet, Erics- 
son, and Coles. 

Those well-established principles of naval con- 
struction require, in every war vessel, the three fol- 
lowing features: — 

I. Minimum of surface above the water line 
exposed to fire. 

II. Maximum of speed and fuel-carrying capacity. 

III. Maximum of gun power, comprising length 
of range and power of penetration. 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 175 

Our heavy battleships, those now in existence, and 
those in process of construction, are constructed 
in absolute defiance of these well-established prin- 
ciples. 

They have almost a maximum of exposed sur- 
face above the water line. They have, considering 
proper standards, a very low rate of speed. They 
have very far from the maximum of gun power. 
In each one of these three fundamental essentials 
of naval construction they are known to be utterly 
wanting. 

War vessels need always to be constructed with 
reference to the particular conditions under which 
they are to be used. In our Civil War, Ellet and 
Eads in a marvelcftisly short space of time impro- 
vised fleets of gunboats, largely from river steam- 
boats, which were well fitted for the particular 
work they were to accomplish, and which accom- 
plished that work with great success. The Moni- 
tor was a special construction, to meet a special 
need. She was finished inside of a hundred days 
from the time her keel was laid. Two Staten Island 
ferry-boats, which had their machinery largely 
above the water line, were converted into ex- 
tremely serviceable craft, for operations on the 
southern bayous. At all times, ships constructed 
for a special purpose, like our heavy battleships. 



176 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

even if they do not possess the highest degree of 
vuhierabihty, may turn out to be almost entirely 
useless. Moreover, the large battleship of the 
present day requires such a long period of time 
for its construction, that it may almost be said 
to be obsolete before its completion. Apart from 
other objections, the intricacy of its machinery 
alone is well nigh a complete condemnation of the 
wisdom of its designing. 

Naval problems, and naval conditions, are al- 
ways in a state of transition. This is the case, 
even in times of peace. But in any and every war, 
naval problems and conditions are special, and 
need to be met with special means and devices. 

Another fact becomes at this time most mate- 
rial. It is this. We may now be on the eve of a 
new revolution in the matter of fuel and motive 
machinery for ocean-going steamships. Recent 
experiments by naval authorities would seem to 
indicate that there is at least a large possibility, 
that we shall find it wise, in the immediate future, 
to substitute petroleum in some of its forms for 
coal, as the fuel of our war vessels. The turbine 
propeller may at a very early date supplant the 
present form of the screw. Under these circum- 
stances, it is most unwise for us at the present 
time to go into a large expenditure for a fleet of 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 177 

large war vessels, which may turn out, when 
constructed, to be entirely useless. It is quite 
needless. 

We may now consider further facts as to the 
management of the Navy. 

For the year ending June 30, 1903, the expendi- 
ture for the Navy Department was $82,618,034.18. 
That was an increase over the corresponding ex- 
penditure for the year 1902 of $14,814,905.94. 

But the administration is making still further 
large increases in the expenditure for naval con- 
struction. 

That being so, it becomes interesting and per- 
tinent to make a short review of the figures as 
to our naval expenditure during the Civil War, 
and in the period subsequent thereto, down to the 
present time. 

The expenditure on the Navy for the years just 
preceding and during the Civil War was as fol- 
lows : — 

For the year 1860 $11,514,649.83 

For the year 1861 12,387,156.52 

For the year 1862 42,640,353.09 

For the year 1863 63,261,235.31 

For the year 1864 85,704,963.74 

For the year 1865 122,617,434.07 

For the year 1866 717,629,808.56 

For the year 1867 31,034,011.04 



178 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

For the year 1868 $25,775,502.72 

For the year 1869 20,000,757.97 

For the year 1870 21,780,229.87 

For the year 1871 19,431,027.21 

For the year 1872 21,249,809.99 

For the year 1873 23,526,256.79 

For the year 1874 30,932,587.42 

For the year 1875 21,497,626.27 

For the year 1876 18,963,309.82 

For the year 1877 14,959,935.36 

For the year 1880 13,536,984.74 

For the year 1886 13,907,887.74 

For the year 1889 21,378,809.31 

For the year 1894 31,701,293.79 

For the year 1897 34,561,546.29 

For the year 1898 58,823,984.80 

For the year 1899 63,942,104.25 

For the year 1900 55,953,077.72 

For the year 1901 60,506,978.47 

For the year 1902 67,803,128.24 

For the year 1903 82,618,034.18 

Thereupon, in the year 1904, we find ourselves 
confronted with the probability of an expenditure 
for the Navy for the next fiscal year of nearly a 
hundred millions of dollars, with the probability 
of a very large increase of even that figure in the 
near future. 

We are at peace with all the world. There is 
not the slightest necessity for this large expendi- 
ture. If we should unavoidably and necessarily 
become involved in. a war with any foreign power 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 179 

in the course of the next twenty-five years, which 
is an extreme improbabihty, we could at the be- 
ginning of the war, with our present resources 
and facihties for construction, bring into exist- 
ence inside of two months a large fleet of vessels, 
of almost any kind that would be required for 
either offensive or defensive purposes, that would 
be adapted to then existing needs. The money 
which we are now spending on large battleships 
is thrown away. Its results, in the shape of armored 
vessels, will, in all probability, go into the scrap 
heap before there is any opportunity to use them, 
provided we conduct ourselves towards other na- 
tions with common decency and common cour- 
tesy. Utterly unnecessary, a mere wanton waste 
of money, labor, and materials, is this forty or 
fifty millions of dollars a year which we are now 
spending in the construction of these top-heavy 
vulnerable craft, with defective speed and defective 
gun power. Taking them at their best, they are 
inferior for effective work to the vessels that we 
could provide inside of sixty days, by the mere 
purchase of the fastest ocean-going steamships 
at any particular time, and their conversion into 
war vessels upon the ideas of Eads and Ericsson. 
In a recent trial by the Navy Department of the 
Columbia and the Minneapolis, presumably our 



180 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

two fastest armored cruisers, the highest speed 
reached by either was twenty knots. The maximum 
speed of the RJiode Island battleship in smooth 
water is nineteen knots. Ocean steamships almost 
witliout number make now a speed approximating 
t^^enty-five knots. A modern whaleback ship, with 
an overdeck of steel, with low revolving turrets on 
Ericsson's methods, carrying two or three rifled 
guns of the longest range and the highest power, 
would sink our entire fleet of battleships. The case 
would be merely that of a skillful boxer, who is 
able to conquer an antagonist of much heavier 
weight by superior rapidity of movement, hitting 
and getting away. Li short, our large battleships 
are nothing more nor less than large floating 
targets. 

It is easily seen, that the present time is, of 
all times, one when we ought by every possible 
means to avoid war. All that we need to do, to 
accomplish that end, is to mind our own business, 
and treat other nations with common decency and 
common courtesy. Although our military power 
is not to-day developed or organized, nevertheless 
it is e^adent to all nations that we are the strong- 
est nation on the face of the earth. Every people 
wishes our friendship. None will venture to make 
an unjustifiable attack upon us. Wherever the 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 181 

rights of the United States or its citizens come in 
question, there can be no reasonable doubt that 
those rights can be fully secured by peaceful means. 
The possession of large armaments for this coun- 
try is quite needless. It is, moreover, a standing 
incitement to lead us into hostilities without ade- 
quate reason. Every one agrees that this coun- 
try should at all times be properly prepared for 
war. But proper preparation for war, with us, 
does not mean the construction of large naval 
armaments, or the maintenance of a large standing 
army. 

Let us now turn to another case of needless and 
useless waste of public money now in progress, the 
Panama Canal. 

The construction of the Panama Canal carries 
with it three certainties : First : An enormous money 
expenditure; Second: A long period of time before 
its completion, during which the interest on the 
investment would be entirely lost; Third: A large 
increase over the estimates of the cost of construc- 
tion. 

The purpose to be attained by the construction 
of the Canal is, of course, the transportation of 
freight and passengers from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific in large ocean-going ships, without transfer, 
or breaking bulk. Of course, too, time is of the 



182 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

utmost importance. Communication from the At- 
lantic to the Pacific should be accomplished at the 
earliest possible time, and at the least possible 
cost. 

Now, it happens to be the fact, that two methods 
of transit for large ocean-going vessels, propelled 
either by sail or steam, have already been examined, 
and approved, by the highest engineering authori- 
ties, either one of which gives us the largest degree 
of certainty, of speedy means of communication 
between the Atlantic and Pacific within a very short 
period of time, and at a very low figure of money 
expenditure. 

Those two routes are. First: the route over the 
Isthmus of Tehuantepec, by means of a ship rail- 
way; Second: the route to the east of the Isthmus 
of Panama, called the Darien route, using the 
river Atrato from the Gulf of Mexico as a canal 
for upwards of one hundred miles, with a short 
cut at the head of ship navigation on that river to 
the Pacific Ocean. 

Singularly enough, both these routes, whether 
intentionally or otherwise, have been quite disre- 
garded, during all the recent discussions of the 
question of interoceanic transit. It was evidently 
for the interest of the parties who were attempting 
to negotiate a sale to our government of the French 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 183 

rights, that both of these other routes should be 
kept out of consideration. No criticism is here 
made on account of that fact against the persons 
who were engaged in negotiating that sale. Never- 
theless the fact remains, that there are these other 
two routes for interoceanic transit; that they are 
far less expensive than the Panama route; that 
either one of them can be constructed in a much 
shorter period of time; and that each of them has 
been approved by the highest engineering talent 
in the civilized world. 

A very short statement of facts will lay the whole 
situation before the reader. 

The scheme for inter-oceanic transit by the 
Tehuantepec route was originally developed and 
elaborated by the great engineer. Captain Eads. 
Eads's scheme was for a ship railway. He urged 
a ship railway at Panama in preference to the 
scheme of a canal. In a letter to the New York 
" Tribune," on June 10, 1879, after the completion 
of his great work on the jetties at the mouth of the 
Mississippi, Captain Eads said: — 

" My own studies have satisfied me of the entire feasi- 
bility of such transportation by railroad, and I have no 
hesitation in saying that for a sum not exceeding one- 
third of the estimated cost of the canal, namely, about 
$50,000,000, the largest ships which enter the Port of New 
York can be transferred when fuUi/^ loaded with abso- 



184 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

lide safety, across the Isthmus on a railway constructed 
for the purpose, within twenty-four hours from the mo- 
ment they are taken in charge in one sea until they 
are delivered into the other ready to depart on their 
journey." 

Briefly stated, the transportation of ships by 
ship railway consists in floating the ship into a 
cradle or dry dock in the port of one ocean, raising 
that cradle or dry dock by machinery, and placing 
it on a car propelled over a six-rail railroad, equiva- 
lent to the ordinary railroad of three tracks. In the 
construction of such a railroad it is necessary to 
eliminate curves. The elimination of the curves is 
accomplished by the use of turn-tables, where it 
becomes necessary to change the direction of the 
track. Eads's entire scheme was elaborated by him 
with full specifications and working models; and 
his estimates were worked out with minute detail. 
The practicability of his enterprise was approved 
by the leading engineers of both England and the 
United States. His plans and preliminary prepa- 
rations had the approval of over fifty promi- 
nent naval architects, shipbuilders, navigators, and 
engineers in the United States and Europe. He 
expended about $500,000 in surveys and engineer- 
ing work on this scheme. If he had lived, the proba- 
bility is very strong, that his genius and energy 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 185 

would have been able to carry through the con- 
struction of the railway according to his designs. 
But his death, in 1887, removed the necessary 
motive power. 

The route contemplated began in the Gulf of 
Mexico, in the harbor of Goatzacoalcos. On the 
Pacific coast, the railway was to have its terminus 
near the city of Tehuantepec. The advantages of 
the Tehuantepec route over the Panama and the 
Nicaragua routes, in the opinion of Captain Eads, 
were very great. They were fully detailed by him, 
but it is unnecessary to go into those details here. 
For our present purpose, it is sufficient to say, that 
Eads's estimate of the entire cost of construction 
of his ship railway complete, including harbors, 
docks, railway, and general plant and machinery 
for transporting vessels of 5000 tons gross weight, 
was less than $75,000,000. 

It may be added, that the general outline of Eads's 
scheme was communicated by him orally to the 
British Association of Engineers at its meeting at 
York, England, in 1881. The Committee of Com- 
merce of the United States Senate between that 
date and August, 1884 (the precise date I am not 
now able to give), made by unanimous vote a 
favorable report to the Senate, recommending that 
a bill should be passed to promote the construction 



186 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

of Eads's ship railway. A concession for the con- 
struction of the railway was obtained from the 
Mexican government by Eads in 1881, which ex- 
tended over a period of ninety-nine years from its 
date. An article published in the London " Times," 
used the following language in relation to the en- 
terprise : — 

"All the points we have advanced, and the general 
feasibility of the scheme, are successfully demonstrated 
by a large working model, of the whole of the appliances 
which were recently inspected in operation at 127 Long- 
acre, London. . . . As it is intended to construct the line 
for profit, the works would not be of such proportions, 
either in the docks, cradles, or railway, as to carry the 
Great Eastern ; although if in the future the transport 
of such large vessels should be required and promised 
to be profitable, it would be practicable to carry them 
by increasing the width of the roadbed, the size of the 
cradles, and the floatation powers of the openings and 
turn-tables. Ships of 5000 tons gross weight will include 
ninety per cent of the present tonnage of the world; and 
the ship railway will be constructed to accommodate this 
as the maximum-sized vessels. The single track is con- 
sidered to be capable with only the five turn-tables that 
are necessary to change the direction of the road in diffi- 
cult parts of the line, to permit of ten or twelve ships start- 
ing from each end of the line to pass each other daily, 
and to accomplish the trip in from fifteen to eighteen 
hours without any difficulty. If these vessels averaged 
fifteen hundred tons each, they would amount to at least 
one-fourth more than the Suez Canal is accommodating 
to-day. In regard to the cost of the ship railway complete. 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 187 

it is stated, that from the careful estimates based upon 
the survey, the entire project, including harbors, docks, 
roadway, and general plant and machinery for transport- 
ing vessels of 5000 tons gross weight, will be about 
£15,000,000." 

Full details as to this Tehuantepec route, and its 
great superiority from a commercial point of view 
over the Panama and other routes, are contained 
in United States Senate Document No. 34, of the 
54th Congress, First Session, ordered to be printed 
by the Senate, December 20, 1895. That document 
is a reprint of a lecture by Elmer L. Corthell, one 
of the most eminent living railway engineers. 

We now proceed to give a statement of some of 
the facts relating to the Darien route, by the river 
Atrato. 

The report of the Secretary of the Navy, for the 
year 1873, contains the following statement as to 
the canal to be constructed by what is termed the 
Darien route : — 

"Briefly stated, the route selected by Commander 
Selfridge includes one hundred miles of river navigation 
of the Atrato, which has been carefully sounded, and 
found to be fully capable of being navigated by the largest 
class of ocean steamers. Between the River Atrato and 
the Pacific, a canal or artificial cut is made but twenty- 
eight miles in length. The canal for twenty-two miles 
of its distance passes through a plain with a gradual 
rise of ninety feet. There will then remain six miles 



188 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

to the Pacific, of which three are a moderate open cut 
and three miles of tunnelling. It is estimated that the 
work will cost between fifty millions and sixty mil- 
lions of dollars, and that it can be completed within ten 
years." 

Commander Selfridge's report, which appears 
in the printed volume of Report of the Secretary 
of the Navy, for 1873, at pages 164 to 181, contains 
the following statements : — 

"That the Atrato is entirely and wholly capable of 
ship navigation to the point at which we wish to leave it, 
is a fact that no longer admits of any doubt. 

"From ocean to ocean, then, the only barriers are the 
half mile of sand bar at the Atrato 's mouth, and the 
twenty-eight miles intervening at the mouth of the Napipi, 
between the Atrato and the Pacific, through which an 
artificial cut or canal must be made." 

The length of the Atrato River available for ship 
navigation, as above mentioned, is upwards of 100 
miles. There can be little doubt, that the twenty- 
eight miles of continuation from the head of navi- 
gation on the river Atrato could be completed with 
great speed, and economy of construction, by incor- 
porating in the Darien scheme the use of the ship 
railway on the general designs of Captain Eads. 
Moreover, with the increased speed of construc- 
tion under modern mechanical methods, it would 
seem highly probable that the Darien route could 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 189 

be completely finished for use within one or two 
years. 

The cost of construction by the Darien route was 
estimated by Commander Selfridge on two different 
methods. The most expensive one, after making 
due allowances of twenty-five per cent for con- 
tingencies, was $90,000,000. Selfridge 's estimates 
were approved by Benjamin H. Latrobe,Esq., the 
distinguished engineer of the Baltimore & Ohio 
Railroad. 

The statements here made are taken from official 
documents, now on file in the proper departments 
in Washington, and are all based on schemes and 
estimates approved by the highest engineering au- 
thorities in the world. 

The practical result, which will be accomplished 
by pursuing the construction of a ship canal over the 
Isthmus of Panama in accordance with the present 
plans, or, speaking with more accuracy, with the pre- 
sent absence of any plan, will be the expenditure 
of upwards of two thousand millions of dollars, 
extending over a long period of years, with the 
appointment of a large number of public oflScials. 
In other words, managed as nearly everything else 
has been managed by our national government, the 
construction of the Panama Canal as now contem- 
plated will constitute another huge corruption fund. 



190 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

So far as to the uses of money for the purposes 
of corruption. 

Corruption, however, on the part of our public 
officials, however bad it may be, is not to-day our 
chief difficulty. The worst feature of our present 
system is, that it destroys the possibility of select- 
ing men with a view to their fitness for the special 
work which they are to do in their special offices. 
At every turn, in the selection of men for high 
public office, we practically ignore the question of 
fitness for their work. We make the pretense — 
of selecting our highest national officials by reason 
of their " party principles." But what connection 
is there between the administration of the War 
Department, or the Navy Department, or the State 
Department, or any of the departments, and " party 
principles " ? As matter of practice, " party princi- 
ples " concern nothing but the distribution of " the 
spoils," the payment for the work of operating the 
election machine. 

We are all doing our best, with our present 
machinery. Our present results are the best that 
are possible, under our present system of perpet- 
ual revolution. People and politicians, we are all 
doing as well as we can under our present politi- 
cal system. The citizens have not sufficient time 
— for the operation of the great election machine. 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 191 

Public officials have not the time — to learn their 
work, and to do their best. No official is free — to 
give us his best service. We, the people, are not 
free — to select our best men. Our present term 
system, and any conceivable term system, whether 
the term be long or short, is utterly irrational and 
unpractical. It is unpractical, because it is irra- 
tional. Men do not ripen and decay in one, two, 
or four years. They are not beets or pumpkins. 
They require time — to learn how to do their best 
work. Instead of a term system, we must have a 
time system. 

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that under 
our present political system we put a premium on 
inefficiency and corruption. As matter of fact, we 
make it for the interest of our public servants 
to be unfaithful to their pubhc duties. We make 
infideUty in our public service pay — and pay 
better than fidelity. To our public servants we 
hold out no prospect of continuance in our ser- 
vice, or of advancement, as the reward for faithful 
and efficient public work. In any private call- 
ing, men who do work of the best kind are virtu- 
ally sure of advancement. They rise to the top. 
But a man has no such possibility as that in our 
public employment. The Civil Service reformers 
are most earnest in their efforts to secure men 



192 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

who can pass examinations, at the bottom. But 
what we need is competent men at the top; men 
of brains and experience; not talkers, but work- 
ers; not men who are profuse in professions and 
protestations, but men who give quiet, efficient 
performance. 

Quite apart, however, from the mere losses in 
money which result from our present political sys- 
tem, the most serious consideration is to be found 
in the demoralization of our entire public service, 
that comes from the supremacy of the machine 
politicians. The supreme power in the body pol- 
itic is money — money which is used corruptly. 
These great political organizations, which we term 
"parties," are maintained by money. It is im- 
possible to maintain them otherwise. Every can- 
didate who gets a nomination at their hands, has 
to pay for it in money. Our so-called popular 
elections are carried largely by money. Practi- 
cally — nearly all the highest places in our differ- 
ent governments, local, state, and national, are 
bought and sold, for money. 

It is not intended that the transactions are 
such in form. It is not often the case that an ex- 
press agreement is made in so many words, that a 
nomination, or appointment, is to be paid for at a 
specific figure in dollars and cents. But when Mr. 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 193 

Lincoln's friends made the agreement that Mr. 
Cameron should have a cabinet appointment in 
payment for the votes of the Pennsylvania del- 
egation, it was perfectly well understood, by the 
parties to the transaction, that Mr. Cameron 
would use his powers as he afterwards did. His 
subsequent course of action was precisely what was 
to be expected, and what was expected; expected 
by Mr. Lincoln. When Mr. Lincoln carried out the 
agreement made by his friends, by putting a man 
whom he knew to be notoriously corrupt and dis- 
honest into his most important cabinet position, he 
knew perfectly well, that the appointment meant the 
loss of many thousands of lives and many hundreds 
of millions of dollars, to the people who were strug- 
gling to support the government. He knew per- 
fectly well, that success in the war would be largely 
a matter of money; and that it was almost an 
impossibility for him to do anything so dangerous 
to our cause as to appoint Mr. Cameron. Is it 
possible to conceive anything more demoraUzing to 
the entire force of government employees, and to 
the people, than such an appointment? In sub- 
stance, in its practical effect, the transaction was 
neither more nor less than the sale of a cabinet posi- 
tion for money. Only a few years ago, the state- 
ment was often repeated in the public press, and, so 



194 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

far as my knowledge goes, it has never been denied, 
that a high cabinet position was given in return for 
the contribution of four hundred thousand dollars to 
the "campaign fund " of one of the two "grand old 
parties." It is seldom the case that the candidate 
for our high elective offices does not pay a large 
amount of money to his party "campaign fund." 
No doubt, we do not call this bribery. No doubt, 
under the letter of the law, it is not bribery. But 
what can be more ruinous to the honesty and effi- 
ciency of our public service ? We have, no doubt, 
become accustomed to these transactions. They 
are every-day affairs. Indeed, that is the worst 
feature of the entire situation. The parties to such 
transactions consider that they are doing nothing 
to which exception can be taken. It is the fact, 
that our present political machinery cannot be 
operated in any other way. The money must be 
had. In the first instance, it must be paid by the 
candidates or their friends. Considering the entire 
situation, however, the practical working of the 
machinery is, that our highest offices are bought 
and sold for money; and the action of our highest 
public officials is thereby placed under the control 
of money. 

The facts and figures here given, as was stated 
in the beginning of this chapter, concern only 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 195 

the administration of the national government. 
Under the national government alone, the losses 
in money, to say nothing of the needless loss of 
life in the Civil War, have gone into the thousands 
of millions. 

But losses of the same kind, due to the same 
cause, are the regular daily result of "machine 
politics " in our state and local governments. The 
aggregate of these losses is beyond the possibility 
of computation. We have been in the habit of 
thinking that corruption in our public affairs was 
mainly restricted to the governments of our large 
cities. But that is an error. The largest losses 
take place in the operations of our national gov- 
ernment. But thereto we must add the fact, that 
losses of the same kind take place under every 
state government, and to a greater or less extent, 
under every local government. Everywhere those 
losses are in proportion to the size of our pub- 
lic treasuries. It has been impossible here, and 
it is needless, for the purpose of our present study, 
to go into the figures of the losses to the Ameri- 
can people, due directly to our present political 
system, in our state and local governments. It is 
easy to see, that those losses must of necessity go 
each year into the hundreds, and probably thou- 
sands, of millions. 



196 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

But the money loss alone does not represent 
the largest part of the injury to public interests, 
which is due to "machine politics." The greatest 
evil from which we suffer is in the non-enforce- 
ment of the laws. During the last year, this en- 
tire people has been stirred more deeply than at 
any time since the period of the Civil War, by the 
disclosures of corruption among our highest pub- 
lic oflBcials. Disclosures of abuses in the conduct 
of the affairs of large moneyed institutions were 
bad enough. But the worst feature in the situa- 
tion is, that those abuses were ever possible. They 
were made possible by the connivance of high pub- 
lic oflBcials. There is even a worse feature in the 
situation than that. The abuses go unpunished. 
Fine words, fine speeches, as to the excessive accu- 
mulations of wealth in the hands of individuals 
and large corporations, those we have in abun- 
dance, from the highest sources. But here have 
been many instances of offenses against both the 
civil and criminal law, and the chief offenders are 
not brought to justice. Occasionally some inferior 
subordinate goes to prison. But the men at the 
head, the chief offenders, in some mysterious way, 
all escape. Laws we have in abundance. But 
the laws are not enforced. That is, they are not 
enforced against the rich and strong. Indeed, 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 197 

the chief occupation of some of our highest pro- 
secuting officers at the present day would seem 
to be to devise reasons for the law's non-enforce- 
ment. In former times, when grave crimes were 
committed, we had indictments by grand juries, 
followed by convictions, and appropriate sen- 
tences. But in these modern days, when there 
has been a homicide, or an embezzlement of trust 
funds, we have a sensational procedure before a 
petty magistrate, in order to discover, in advance, 
whether evidence shall be laid before a grand jury. 
Every opportunity is given for delay, for the pur- 
chase or removal of witnesses by guilty parties. 
And the result is, that time passes by, some new 
sensation occupies the public attention, and per- 
sons guilty of the gravest crimes known to the law 
go unpunished. In our great metropolis, in the 
very worst days of a notorious political organi- 
zation, criminals were indicted, convicted, and 
punished, in due course of law, with reasonable 
promptitude. But to-day homicides almost without 
number are reported in the daily press, with no 
effort, so far as one can learn, on the part of our 
public prosecutors to enforce the law, and secure 
protection for human life. The same is true as to 
the protection of property. The same conditions 
exist throughout the country. Crime goes unpun- 



198 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

ished. Apparently, no serious attempt is made to 
enforce the criminal law. 

This condition is due directly to "machine 
politics." Prosecuting officials, and high officials 
of all kinds, are largely under the control of the 
election machine, which, in its turn, is under the 
control of our large modem masses of men and 
money — the one as much as the other. The pro- 
fessional politician is dependent, for his existence, 
and his substance, on two things — money and 
votes. He must have money to control votes. He 
must have votes to control money. However good 
may be his wishes, or his purposes, he is always a 
dependent. He is not a free man. He is the slave 
of the election machine; and the election machine 
is the slave of votes and money. 

Mr. Lincoln, to take the highest type of a 
"machine poUtician," was never a free man — 
was never free to act on his own best judgment 
of what would really serve the highest public inter- 
ests. His use of the powers of his office was always 
largely dominated by " party considerations ; " 
which is only another way of saying that the inter- 
ests of the nation were sacrificed to the needs of 
his own part of the election machine. 

So, too, to-day, the fact that these recent abuses 
in large financial institutions have been possible. 



THE COST OF MACHINE POLITICS 199 

and that they go unpunished, is due to "machine 
politics," and to nothing else. 

Evidently, then, it is an impossibility to make 
any full, or even proximate, computation of the 
"cost of machine politics." It is infinite. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE NECESSITY OF REORGANIZATION 

Escape from these conditions is an impossibility 
so long as we maintain the supremacy of the elec- 
tion machine. 

The supremacy of the election machine will con- 
tinue precisely so long as we continue the system 
of tenure by election, under the form of any term 
system. To escape the result, we must do away 
with the cause. No system of laws can be de\ased, 
which will at once abolish the corrupt use of money 
in poHtics. But it is easily possible to devise 
changes in our present political system, which will 
make the power of money in pohtics much less 
than it is now. 

Money ought to be a great power in the state. 
Indeed, we might almost go so far as to say, that 
any system of laws which gives the highest degree 
of security to money will, at the same time, give 
the highest degree of security to hfe, Hberty, and 
property of all kinds. 

But money must not be the supreme power in 



THE NECESSITY OF REORGANIZATION 201 

the state. It must not be a power above the 
law. 

What we should endeavor to accomplish, and 
what it is possible for us to accomplish, is tfj abol- 
ish the present supremacy in our prac-tical poli- 
tics, not merely of large masses of money, but 
also of large masses of men — of large and power- 
ful combinations, of both capitalists and laborers, 
if we are to use those names. For, if we give things 
their right names, we must remember that every 
capitalist Ls a laborer, and every laborer Is a 
capitalist; and the interests of the two are, in the 
long run, completely harmonious. The protection 
of each requires nothing more than the constant 
impartial enforcement of the laws. 

Now can any thinking man really continue to be 
of the opinion, that it is possible to secure the con- 
stant impartial enforcement of the laws, under 
a continuance of our present poUtical system of 
" machine pohtics " 'f 

" Machine pohtics " has for its very essence the 
leadership of demagogues, and the supremacy of 
money. Our large political organizations, which we 
term "parties," are, at all times, dominated by 
money. Also, at all times, they use for stalking- 
horses, for pohtical bell-wethers, the men who hap- 
pen for the time to be " popular " — men who are 



202 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

fluent, and often eloquent talkers — men who are 
talkers, rather than doers. As a rule, the efficient 
workers are not prolific talkers. They have not the 
time. Indeed, we may almost go so far as to say, 
that the men who are at any time " popular," are 
unfit for any high place in our public service. To 
a great extent, that has always been the case. But 
it is more so to-day than ever. The men who are 
effective workers are generally quiet men, men 
of few words, who have neither the time nor the 
inclination, to make themselves "popular." 

Quite aside from that, however, we have the 
further fact, that the most efficient public service 
requires such a use of official power as will cer- 
tainly make a man "unpopular." 

Here we strike political fundamentals. We had 
hoped, by making our highest pubhc servants peri- 
odically dependent on a popular vote, to enforce 
responsibility to "the people." What we really 
secure is responsibility to the election machine. 
That is a very different thing. As we have already 
seen, the rule of the election machine is the most 
subtle foe to free democratic government. For 
the time, it has made free democratic government 
an impossibility. 

The only possible avenue of escape from the 
tyranny of the election machine is in its abolition. 



THE NECESSITY OF REORGANIZATION 203 

The only possible means for the abolition of the 
election machine is the abolition of the cause of 
its existence. 

The cause of its existence is our system of ten- 
ure by election. That one cause has invariably 
produced that one result. Until recent times, it 
has worked the wreck of every attempt to estab- 
lish democratic institutions. 

It has almost passed into a political truism, 
that no political regime, and no political institu- 
tion, can long continue its existence, in opposition 
to a deep-seated, well-founded conviction in the 
community, that its continued existence will work 
serious injury to the public interests. 

Nevertheless, the fact remains, that every in- 
telligent, thoughtful people is conservative. It may 
almost be said, that its conservatism is in pro- 
portion to its intelligence. There is generally a 
strong inclination, especially in any community 
where there is a large accumulation of wealth, to 
let well enough alone; to avoid new experiments; 
especially, to avoid experiments that are fundamen- 
tal and radical. 

That is reasonable, and right. Experiments that 
are fundamental, and radical, should, no doubt, 
be avoided — in general. 

But what are we to do, when existing evils are 



204 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

fundamental, and radical ? What are we to do, 
when the existing political system, in its funda- 
mental, essential features, is such as to make it 
a practical impossibility, that public opinion, or 
rather the public judgment, should be the su- 
preme controlling force in the state? The very 
essence, the very purpose, of democratic institu- 
tions, is the supremacy of the will of the people. 
But what are we to do, when the institutions are 
so framed as to make it an utter impossibility 
that the will of the people should be supreme, 
that is, supreme as the force of regular daily 
control ? 

Yet that is our condition to-day. The will of 
the people is suppressed, and blocked, at every 
turn, by the impossibility of getting any sub- 
stantial improvement under our present politi- 
cal institutions. 

Naturally, rightly, we are averse to making new 
experiments. But what are we to say to the policy 
of continuing an old experiment, which has al- 
ready failed in the past, and which we know will 
continue to fail in the future; when, in addition, 
we know that the injurious results of that failure 
in the future will steadily increase ? For here we 
have another certainty: that, with our continued 
increase in population and wealth, there will be 



THE NECESSITY OF REORGANIZATION 205 

a continued increase in the power of the macliine 
poHticians, and their abuse of that power. 

If the positions hereinbefore stated are sound, 
there would seem to be no room for doubt or 
argument, as to the overwhelming necessity of 
a fundamental reorganization of our political 
system. 

But then, how is the situation as to its prac- 
ticability ? Is it feasible ? Does it admit of 
actual accomplishment? For practical men, men 
of afiFairs, always avoid, or intend to avoid, the 
impossible. Therefore we are confronted with the 
question of practicability. 

That depends, in my opinion, on the answers 
to these three following questions: — 

I. Is there to-day a general conviction, through 
the entire community, of a need of reorganization ? 
II. Is such reorganization demanded, by the 
community's financial and industrial interests ? 

III. Is it possible, to-day, to combine all the 
forces of the community, both the politicians and 
the people, in an effort for reorganization ? 

For, if reorganization must be had in face of the 
united opposition of the machine politicians, the 
present problem would be even graver than it is. 
Yet it would not do to concede, even then, that the 
situation was desperate. 



206 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

These questions will be considered in the order 
in which they have been stated. 

First: Is there to-day a general conviction, 
through the entire community, of the need of 
reorganization ? 

My answer to this question is in the affirmative. 

That does not imply, that the entire commu- 
nity is as yet agreed as to the precise form, which 
should be given to the measures of reorganiza- 
tion. Such an agreement would take time and 
careful deUberation; deliberation of such a char- 
acter as went to the framing of our National Con- 
stitution in 1787; such deliberation as then went 
to the framing of our different State Constitu- 
tions. It would be expecting altogether too much, 
even with our rapid modern processes of thought 
and action, that tliis American people should be 
agreed in advance, as to the form and details of 
the reorganization which we require. But the evi- 
dence is to my mind very clear and conclusive, 
that the need of reorganization of some kind, 
thorough and fundamental, has already become a 
matter of general conviction. 

Whenever a people invents, and adopts, a 
phrase, a name, then we may be certain that that 
people realizes the practical existence of the thing 
for which the name stands. 



THE NECESSITY OF REORGANIZATION 207 

This American people has now long used the 
name " machine pohtics." It has now long recog- 
nized the fact, that the fundamental practical diffi- 
culty, which always stands in the way of the honest 
and efficient doing of public work, is "machine 
politics." The ordinary daily expression is, that 
in order to have any piece of public work really 
done well, it must be "taken out of politics." 

Moreover, it is the common conviction of that 
fact, among intelligent men, that constitutes to- 
day the force which keeps the most valuable 
men in the community "out of politics." They 
are well aware, that they cannot go into the pub- 
lic service on the same basis on which they stand 
in private caUings. In the private callings, as a 
rule, in the long run, honest, efficient work of the 
highest kind brings a man reasonably large re- 
wards, in money and reputation. But more than 
that, work of the highest order brings promo- 
tion. That condition does not exist in pubUc life. 
In public life, any man who wishes political ad- 
vancement must do the bidding of the machine 
politicians. To the people he can give fine phrases, 
"sounding and glittering generalities," protesta- 
tions of devotion to all that is respectable and 
reputable. But he must not be independent. He 
must be submissive to the election machine. 



208 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

This condition of affairs exists to-day in this 
country everywhere, through our entire poHtieal 
life; throughout our local, state, and national 
governments. It is the general consciousness of 
that fact, which is indicated by the phrase "ma- 
chine politics." 

Therein is the answer to the first of our three 
questions. 

Second: Is such reorganization demanded by 
the community's financial and industrial inter- 
ests? 

All business interests are more or less exposed 
to the action of public oflScials. Taxation, alone, 
affords the means of striking every large property 
interest in the community. The tariff, our sys- 
tem of duties on imports, affords the means of 
striking the large majority of our large commer- 
cial interests. The question of the currency, in 
its main features, seems at last to have been put 
on a basis secure against assault. But questions 
of taxation, and of the tariff, have now been 
used for many years as the regular daily means 
for compelling large money payments to the ma- 
chine politicians. The payments are veiled under 
the form of voluntary contributions to the " legiti- 
mate expenses" of the two political parties. But 
as matter of fact and substance, these contribu- 



THE NECESSITY OF REORGANIZATION 209 

tions are forced levies, to pay for official action, 
which will inure to the benefit of favored private 
interests. Capitalists and business men, the large 
majority of them, do not wish conditions of cor- 
ruption. They do not wish to be compelled to 
purchase protection against the action of legis- 
lative and other officials by the payment of money. 
But they are compelled to submit to existing con- 
ditions. The machme politicians control legisla- 
tion and the action of taxing officials; and they 
use their power to compel the payment of large 
revenues. The amount of those revenues no one 
can know. But the figures are very large. They 
are of many millions. 

But there is still another feature of the situa- 
tion; that is, the element of uncertainty and dis- 
trust that is brought into the business world by 
these quadrennial presidential elections, arising 
from the possibility of large changes in the finan- 
cial policy of the national government, which may 
come from changes in the personality of the houses 
of Congress, and our chief administrative officials. 

Once in four years we have a national revolu- 
tion. No business man can tell what will be its 
result. For aught he can know, there may be 
injected into our national councils a mass of new, 
ignorant, untrained men, who will inaugurate a 



210 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

volume of crazy, crack-brained legislation, which 
will involve a complete disarrangement of existing 
business conditions. The result is a feeling of doubt 
and uncertainty in the business world, for several 
months before each presidential election, which 
has at times operated almost as a complete stop- 
page of trade and commerce in many branches. 

A few years since, one of our leading newspa- 
pers printed a series of interviews with leading 
New York business men, on the money damage to 
the country's business interests caused by these 
periodic presidential elections. A few extracts will 
be given from them. 

The President of one of our largest railroads said : 

"The cost to the country of the Presidential election 
is almost incalculable. It has jar exceeded anything ever 
dreamed of by the founders of the constitution, and accu- 
mulates with each election. 



"Here are figures for you. 

"It is an underestimate, that the national commit- 
tees will spend a half million of dollars each, and indi- 
viduals as much more. This money goes in the direct 
work of the canvass, printing, speakers, workers, and 
the aged and infirm voter business. Then the uniformed 
companies, with their music, halls, transportations, and 
so on will use up not less than four million dollars more. 

"There are frequent suspensions of various industries 
and a general check upon expansion and enterprise. Mill 



THE NECESSITY OF REORGANIZATION 211 

owners and merchants keep close within necessary 
demands, waiting for the policy which the result may 
determine. New enterprises halt and partially completed 
ones go slow. The internal business of the country which 
would be done in the four months of the Presidential 
campaign would amount to about $5,000,000,000 under 
normal conditions. Ten per cent of this is stopped owing 
to the uncertainty as to the effect upon trade of the dif- 
ferent policies of the parties and the doubt of the result. 

"The Presidency of the United States is a business, 
like every other thing. If the President has not had suf- 
ficient opportunities for study and experience, I should 
say that for the first three years of his term he is going 
to school, and as he must act while he is learning, the 
country and its commercial interests are necessarily the 
victims of his experiments." 

The then President of the New York Chamber 
of Commerce said : — 

" The agitation consequent upon a Presidential cam- 
paign always decreases and disarranges commerce; and 
if commerce suffers, every pursuit and profession, with 
the single exception of the newspapers, is similarly af- 
fected, and it is perhaps a question if what the news- 
papers gain by an increased circulation in a general 
election is not lost by the lessened ability of commercial 
men to support their ordinary amount of advertising. 

" Aside from the absolutely necessary and what should 
be unnecessary expenses incident to a general election, 
which probably exceed a million of dollars in a city like 
New York, it is a moderate estimate to conclude that mer- 
chants in general are subjected to a loss of ten per cent 



212 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

upon the profits of the six months' business during the 
Presidential campaign, and this takes no account of the 
loss of valuable time which every good citizen now gives 
or should give to political affairs. 

"Besides, what commerce demands is stability; un- 
certainty is disastrous. Revolutionary changes are fatal 
to buMness; even salutary reforms in business matters 
should not be sudden or violent. Festina lente should 
be the motto." 

The President of another large railroad company 
said: — 

"I am no man at figures, and therefore I can't tell 
you vsrhat is the actual cost to the country of a Presi- 
dential election. But I will tell you that the loss to busi- 
ness interests is very large. No matter which party event- 
ually is successful, the preparations for the struggle and 
the doubt and anxiety surrounding the result are sure 
to have a deleterious effect upon the affairs of the entire 
community. A Presidential election occurring every four 
years does a great deal of harm, from which it takes the 
country a long time to recover." 

The President of the Western Union Telegraph 
Company said: — 

"I have repeatedly said during the last twenty years, 
that I believed it cost the country more to make a Presi- 
dent than it costs to run the government during a four 
years' administration, leaving out of account, of course, 
the item of interest on the public debt. This may be a 
large estimate, but, when all the estimates of cost to the 
country are taken into consideration, I still believe that 
it would be fully sustained. 



THE NECESSITY OF REORGANIZATION 213 

"This year was the first time that I have seen an 
election for President, a Governor and State ofiicers, 
for Mayor and city and county ofiicers, all coming on 
the same day and the votes for all deposited at the same 
time. The necessary effect of all these elections com- 
ing at the same time is to increase the power of machine 
politics and paralyze independent voting. The number 
of officers to be elected, and the number of voters who are 
looking for favors from some one or other of them, give 
power to the machine to hold a strict rein on party lines, 
and mark and punish every bolt in the direction of 
independence. We have here, in our telegraph system, 
the best barometer in the world as to the effect of Presi- 
dential elections upon business. We know of the dis- 
turbance they occasion throughout the entire mercantile 
community better than any one else, and I can tell you 
the effects are tremendous. With ourselves it does not 
make so much difference, for we largely make up from 
political sources and the newspapers the falling off in 
the volume of commercial business done over our wires. 
The mass of telegraphic pohtical correspondence and 
press despatches is enormous. But it is vastly different 
in commercial life. In many branches of business there 
is almost complete stagnation for a long time before and 
for quite a while after Presidential elections. Even now 
trade is only beginning to show signs of returning ani- 
mation in many quarters." 

These opinions cannot be successfully contro- 
verted. They are statements of actual existing 
conditions, from practical business men. These 
conditions are due to our system of perpetual peri- 
odic revolution. 



214 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

These revolutions inflict severe money loss not 
on the capitalists alone, but on the entire com- 
munity. Whatever interferes, periodically and per- 
manently, with the conduct of our large business 
enterprises, touches the income and earnings of 
every workingman, whether he works with his 
hands or his head. The capitalist, the employer, 
may be the one who feels the injury most directly 
in the first instance. But the injury does not stop 
with him. In the end, those who suffer most are 
the poor and weak. The rich and strong can en- 
dure their losses. The most severe sufferers are the 
employees, so-called, who are dependent on their 
regular wages for their daily support. 

As to this point, then, there can be no doubt, 
that reorganization is imperatively demanded by 
all the financial and business interests of the com- 
munity. 

We come, then, to our next question. 

Third: Is it possible, to-day, to combine all 
the forces of the community, the politicians and 
the people, in an effort for reorganization ? 

That depends, mainly, on the answer to an- 
other question: Is it for the interest, for the mere 
money interest, of the entire community, of the 
politicians as well as the people, that we should 
have such reorganization ? 



THE NECESSITY OF REORGANIZATION 215 

My answer to this question is, that it is most 
decidedly for the common interest, for the mere 
money interest, of the entire community — of the 
" machine politicians " as well as the people — to 
put an end, at once, iBnally and forever, to this 
system of perpetual periodic revolution. 

The "machine politicians" are themselves the 
greatest sufferers from present conditions. They 
would be the men who would be most directly, 
most immediately, and most largely benefited by 
the proposed reorganization. The reorganization 
can, too, be easily given such a form, in my opin- 
ion, as to enlist their earnest support. 

Let us see how this is. 

Let us take first the case of the national govern- 
ment. Suppose we were to make our reorganiza- 
tion take this form: Consolidate the two houses 
of Congress, with their existing membership, in a 
single popular assembly. Abolish the term limita- 
tion for those present members; give to the result- 
ing popular assembly, the power of removal of the 
President by a two-thirds vote. Take away at the 
same time their power over appointments. Have 
subsequent elections of new members, and of a 
President, whenever there shall be vacancies, and 
not otherwise. 

There is at least a possibility, if not a probabil- 



216 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

ity, that such a scheme would secure the support 
of the existing members of Congress of both par- 
ties. For it would practically secure them their 
present places for a considerable, and indefinite, 
period. The present members of Congress com- 
prise the most powerful men in both the great 
" parties," from all parts of the nation. The power 
of such a combination of men is beyond estimate. 

We may at once assume, that even the power 
of such a combination of men would be unequal 
to the accomplishment of so great a change in 
our political system, unless the change were really 
for the best interests of the entire people. If, 
however, the change were, in fact, for the best 
interests of the entire people, then there would 
be a strong possibility — to say the least — of 
carrying it through, with such combined support. 

The final question then is, would a change of 
our national government, in that form, be for the 
best interests of this entire people ? 

My answer is, that it would. 

The first and chief point would be, that we 
should at once make those members of Congress 
free and independent. We should at once make 
it possible for them to give us their best work 
without fear of the election machine. That would 
be, of itself, an immense advance. 



THE NECESSITY OF REORGANIZATION 217 

This plan would have another great advan- 
tage. It would meet the views of the conservative 
element in the nation, by removing all danger of 
any sudden revolutionary interference with existing 
financial and industrial conditions. The Senate, 
with its existing membership, would be a compo- 
nent part of the newly organized Congress. That 
would be an ample security against any violent or 
sweeping interference with large vested financial 
and industrial interests. 

This plan, too, would proceed on the basis here- 
tofore indicated, of accomplishing a revolution in 
methods, and not in men. 

Whenever such a change should be made, we 
must take our chances with men. We have to take 
those chances now. Even now, the regular daily 
control of national affairs is in the hands of those 
men who are now in Congress. 

Such a change would give us a great improve- 
ment over existing conditions. The men now in 
power are, upon the whole, a better body of men 
with whom to begin our new experiment, than 
any other body whom we could reasonably ex- 
pect to get. For they already have considerable 
knowledge of public affairs, and have experi- 
ence. This will always be the case. Certainly our 
present system of popular election does not from 



218 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

year to year tend to give any improvement in 
the quality of our representatives in Congress. 
But after all is said, our chief practical difficulty 
in obtaining honest and efficient administration, 
even under existing conditions, lies in the con- 
trol of our members of Congress, and our chief 
executives, by the machine politicians. Our pre- 
sent congressmen — practically all of them — 
are men of ability decidedly above the average. 
A large number of them are men of really large 
capacity, who would be able to give us excellent 
work, if we only gave them time, and freedom. 
The thing which we must accomplish, is a change 
of methods. Perpetual periodic changes of men 
— that we have tried now for many years. We 
have now made a prolonged and thorough test 
of the process of continuous periodic revolution. 
We have learned by actual experience its out- 
side practical possibilities. We no longer need 
to depend on theory. The men in power to-day 
are as good as any that we have any reasonable 
chance of getting under our present system. It 
is a virtual certainty, that these men will give us 
better work, if we give them time, and freedom, 
than will be possible under present conditions. 
It is a virtual certainty, that a change of system, 
retaining these men now in office, will give us bet- 



THE NECESSITY OF REORGANIZATION 219 

ter practical results than these repeated changes of 
men, which constitute our outside possibility under 
our present form of governmental organization. 

Sooner or later, we must make a change in 
methods. We cannot long permit existing condi- 
tions. The drain on all the community's forces, on 
its time, its labor, its money, is wholly needless, 
and is fast approaching the limits of endurance. 
We had best make the change at once, even if we 
take some chances of partial failure. The men 
now in power in our national government, if 
they are made secure in their places, will have the 
largest possible inducement to give us their best 
work. The bad work that we get from them, even 
now, is due rather to their lack of freedom, than 
to any bad intentions on their part. Those same 
men will do better under new conditions, than new 
men under conditions now existing. 

Freedom, independence, coupled with respon- 
sibility, is the essential condition of faithful and 
efficient public service. If we make our public 
servants free, and independent, at the same time 
having adequate security for the enforcement 
of official responsibility, the able men in our na- 
tional legislature, of whom there are many, will 
speedily come to the front, will take control of 
the situation, and will purify our national admin- 



230 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

istration. We cannot get purity from stagnation. 
Nor can we get healthy, vigorous action from men 
in fetters. In any event, we must trust men. We 
can trust them all the better, if we give them a 
free head, and a free hand. 

A Uke method of reorganization could be used 
for our different state and municipal governments. 
In every case our effort should be, to effect a 
permanent revolution in methods, in the place of 
these perpetual revolutions in men; and to enlist, 
so far as we can, the support of the machine politi- 
cians in accomplishing that revolution. 



CHAPTER V 

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 

Government is the agency, on which we depend 
for the security of hfe, liberty, and property; for 
all that makes life worth living; for the safety of 
the individual; for securing to the individual the 
possibility of developing himself, on his own lines, 
working out his own career, making the most of 
his own powers, in short, Uving his own life. 

In the last century we have heard much of 
individualism; of individualism as opposed to 
authority; especially the authority of government. 
It has been hastily assumed, that there was a 
necessity of opposition between the two. 

That is an error. Individualism cannot exist, that 
is, it cannot exist in full force and virtue, without 
the authority and protection of government. More- 
over, the authority of government must be backed 
by force — by the power of the entire community. 
That force and power must be exercised by the 
community's wisest heads. 

So, too, as to freedom. Freedom cannot have 



%%% ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

an existence, without the protection of the law. 
That protection it cannot have without govern- 
ment. Government cannot do its whole duty, can- 
not adequately serve its ends, unless it be strong 
— unless, too, it acts with vigor and speed, and at 
the same time, with wisdom. It must embody the 
force of the entire community in a single hand. 
That hand must be guided, and controlled, by a 
single brain, and a single will — the brain and 
will of the entire people. 

We must abandon, finally, the primitive idea, 
that "government by the people" means govern- 
ment by everybody; or government by average 
ordinary men taking turns, rotatory government. 
Rotatory government is not democracy. Neither 
is democracy mass rule. Mass rule is mob rule. 
Rotatory government is "machine poUtics." No 
sane man advocates the rule of the mob. But 
that is what we must have, in a greater or less 
degree, unless we have genuine government by the 
people, acting through men carefully selected. Se- 
lection, selection of the fittest, is the essence of 
wise and efficient government — the essence of 
democracy. 

Democratic institutions have come into ex- 
istence for practical reasons. They have been the 
result of the efforts of practical men; of efforts 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 223 

to devise political machinery which will give us 
better practical results than can be attained from 
any hereditary system. Hereditary systems have 
been tested in many forms. They always have 
been, and always must be, failures. Especially, 
they are quite inadequate to deal with our large 
modem social forces. 

Democratic institutions, however, as before 
stated, have not yet been made a final success. 
They are still in their experimental stages. Prior 
to the experiment in our own great political lab- 
oratory, initiated in 1787, they had never been 
tried on any large scale. Up to that time, efforts 
at popular government had in the main been 
limited to single cities, to small separate com- 
munities. Our experiment of 1787 was the first 
in the world's history, wherein the attempt had 
been made to weld together in one democratic 
organism large independent communities, with 
large territories, and large populations. 

The men who inaugurated that experiment 
were far from sanguine as to its results. Some of 
them were pessimistic to an extreme. They feared, 
that the attempt to establish a supreme national 
government would result in a new tyranny. 

Time, however, has now demonstrated the 
possibility of operating democratic institutions 



224 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

on a large scale, governing by their agency large 
territories, and large populations. 

Nevertheless, this first experiment in demo- 
cracy on a large scale has developed working 
defects in the forms of political machinery hith- 
erto in use. Especially, it has developed defects 
in the machinery for securing the formation, and 
the supremacy, of the will, and the judgment, 
of the people. We thought to have government, 
of the people, by the people, for the people. Our 
practical result — thus far — is tyranny, of the 
people, by the election machine, for the election 
machine. 

Organization is as much a necessity in gov- 
ernments, as in all collections of men, wherein 
combined common action is to be taken by men 
in large numbers. The larger the numbers, the 
greater the necessity of organization. Without 
organization, a "people" becomes a mob. 

We are to-day confronted with an alternative, 
between a continuance of our futile attempt at mass 
rule and the establishment of organized democracy. 
From that alternative there is no escape. 

Our experience has now taught us, that the prac- 
tical result of any system of periodic popular elec- 
tion is to put government in the hands of a body 
of men who make vote hunting and place hunting 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 225 

a trade; who buy and sell votes, offices, and offi- 
cial action, as articles of merchandise, for money. 
The theory is, that the supreme power in the state 
is the will of the people. The actual practical 
result is, that the supreme power in the state 
is money. 

Our existing conditions can be obviated, and 
avoided, only by right organization. That organ- 
ization must take such form as to make it possible 
for the people to select fit men to be the head of 
the body politic, and to keep them there; to train 
them in the school of experience; to give them 
time to accomplish substantial results, to show the 
stuff they are made of; to use them so long as they 
are individually and separately fit for their indi- 
vidual separate work; to change them singly, as 
such changes become necessary; to promote men 
from the ranks, as they show themselves fit for 
promotion; to retire and pension our pubHc ser- 
vants, when they have served us faithfully for a 
sufficiently long time. In short, we must so reor- 
ganize our pohtical system as to bring the people's 
brains to the top; to give free play to the normal 
natural political forces, to the forces of mental 
gravitation. Gravitation, in things of the mind, 
works upward. Brains are like cream. They rise 
to the top. But perpetual stirring of the pohtical 



226 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

caldron makes it impossible for the cream to rise. 
In short, conditions of perpetual revolution make 
impossible the operation of the regular political 
forces, after normal natural methods. We must 
put an end to this process of perpetual periodic 
revolution. We must establish the supremacy 
of the judgment and the will of the people. We 
must put an end to the supremacy of the election 
machine. 

That is a thing quite within our political possi- 
bilities, with the new light that we have acquired 
from our experience in the last century. It is quite 
practicable for us, to-day, to install a new form of 
political machinery; or, to speak with more accu- 
racy, to do a work of reconstruction, and reorganiza- 
tion, in the development of democratic institutions. 

The tendency in democratic development is, 
distinctly and unmistakably, towards the adoption 
of the popular assembly as the organ of supreme 
control in the body politic; an organ having its 
own continuous life; with a steady continuous 
outflow of old blood; a steady continuous slough- 
ing off of old fibre ; and a corresponding continuous 
inflow of new blood, and growth of new fibre in 
place of old. 

A really representative popular assembly, se- 
lected by a free process of popular election, is now 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 227 

easily within our political possibilities. Give us a 
process of really free popular election, allow the 
citizens in each constituency to have the use of that 
process in the selection of the individual members 
of the popular assembly, and we shall have as 
near to a certainty as we can get in human affairs, 
that that assembly will be composed of men, each 
one of whom will be a man of exceptional ability, 
of exceptional integrity, of sound judgment, and 
closely in touch with the interests of his own dis- 
trict. We shall have as near to a certainty as we 
can get in human affairs, that that assembly will be 
composed of men of all shades of opinion, on the 
important questions of the day. Such a body of 
men, while its action will not be perfect, will be 
the best body of men available, for forming wise 
judgments on the management of our daily public 
interests. 

In trusting the supreme control of public affairs 
to such a body of men, we shall not place our 
dependence on the ability and integrity of any 
single man, or of any small number of men. Our 
dependence will be on the ability and integrity of 
the entire body, composed of men selected by the 
severe process of the deliberations of an electoral 
college or convention — reenforced and supported 
at all times by the sunlight of publicity. Of course. 



228 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

we must assume, that at times single individuals, 
even if selected by this most careful of processes, 
will prove false to their trusts. But we must also 
assume, that it will seldom happen, that any large 
number of such men will betray the interests com- 
mitted to their charge. It is now an old truth, that 
the possession of power brings the sense of respon- 
sibility. When the possessor of power is free, is 
free to act on his own best judgment, if he is placed 
in the focus of the public gaze, we have the strong- 
est security practicable for wise action. In a repre- 
sentative popular assembly, of reasonably large 
numbers of men, whose tenure of office does not 
depend on money or votes, we shall find our strong- 
est security, not for action that will be perfect, but 
for action that will be the best available from 
merely human agencies. It will be action of a far 
higher order than any that we can get from any 
assembly of men who are selected and controlled 
by the election machine. 

The superiority of the practical results obtain- 
able from such a body of men to anything that it 
is possible for us to get from our present state and 
national legislatures, with all the agencies and 
influences procurable from our present political 
system, is beyond calculation. The power on 
which we must depend, as the great motive power 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 229 

in democratic government, is the power of free 
thought. That power is destroyed by the election 
machine. That power we can get, and use, as the 
regular motive force in the body politic, only when 
we give to our public servants full and complete 
freedom — while, at the same time, we insure full 
responsibility to the people, directly or indirectly, 
on the part of every single public official. 

The term "representative," when used in this 
connection, under any correct theory of demo- 
cratic government, means, not that the "repre- 
sentative," so called, is to "represent" his con- 
stituents' opinions ; or that he is to act on his 
constituents' opinions; but that he is to act for 
them, as their attorney or agent, on his own best 
judgment; that he is to take part, on their behalf, 
in the joint deliberations of their general assem- 
bly; that he is to contribute his part, in the shape 
of his own best thought, to those deliberations; 
that his thought is to be free; his action is to be 
free; to the end, that the thought and action of 
the entire assembly may be free. So, only, will 
it be possible, to get that assembly's wisest action. 
So, only, will it be possible, to get the wisest prac- 
ticable action of "the people," whom that assem- 
bly "represents," for whom it acts. The citizens 
of each constituency must select their represen- 



230 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

tative, not because he "represents" the present 
opinions, of a majority of the citizens, on some 
few public questions, which have a deep public 
interest at that particular time. They must select 
him by reason of his own personal qualities; his 
individual calibre and character; his ability to 
do good practical work in the deliberations of the 
popular assembly; to do good service in enabling 
that assembly to form the people's wisest judgment 
on the large public questions of the future. 

" Issues," and " platforms, " always, of necessity, 
largely concern questions of the past. Or, if they 
concern questions of the present, they concern 
those questions in relations already known. More- 
over, they are always vague and valueless. But 
the questions on which our popular assemblies 
are to act are the new questions of the future. 
Those new questions of the future, when they 
come up for action, will present new relations. 
They will arise in new forms, not yet known and 
understood. Those questions must be decided, 
under the new conditions of the future. They 
must be decided by the popular assembly's free 
thought, by its best judgment. 

Democracy's chief essential feature should be 
the supremacy of the people's brain, the popular 
assembly; a single organ, brought into being by 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 231 

the process of natural selection, the selection of 
single men, by reason of their special fitness for 
their special work. 

The practical result, which will be accomplished 
by democracy in that form, that is, which will 
be accomplished more nearly and surely than 
under existing conditions, will be the supremacy 
of free thought, the thought of the whole people. 
What we shall get will be, not the hasty prejudice 
of the moment, even though it be the prejudice 
of a majority of the entire multitude; but the 
calm, deliberate judgment of the entire people, 
thinking as a unit, judging as a unit, acting as a 
unit. 

We have been losing sight of the fundamental 
nature of the process of joint united deliberation, 
by a people, as a people. We have been confusing 
that process with the other process, of making a 
mere enumeration of the individual prejudices, 
or, if you please, opinions — of a mere majority 
of the citizens in mass. The processes are essen- 
tially different. The one has little or no practical 
value, as a power for the steady, wise control of 
the forces of a large community. The other is the 
best process that can be devised, so long as human 
nature remains what it now is, for forming and 
uttering the judgment, and the will, of a people. 



232 UKGAJNIZED DEMOCRACY 

thinking and acting as a people, and not as a mere 
aggregation of individuals. 

The present prevalent idea as to the nature of 
democracy is, that it means, to some extent, a lack 
of authority, a lack of control; in fact, that it 
means a greater or less degree of license. 

Even at the risk of repetition, let it be said, de- 
mocracy means something far different. It means, 
that there must be in the state a supreme author- 
ity; a power of supreme control; which will have 
greater wisdom, greater strength, and greater sta- 
bility, than anything practicable under any other 
form of government. At the same time, demo- 
cracy, rightly organized, will give a more perfect 
security for genuine freedom, than government in 
any other form. Freedom, in any correct sense 
of the word, cannot exist without governmental 
control, a control which is strong, firm, and irre- 
sistible. If every man is free to do as he wishes, 
the result will be constant interference with the 
freedom of others. Freedom can have no real ex- 
istence, unless it be freedom for all the individual 
members of the community; and unless that free- 
dom for all be equal. In order to secure free- 
dom of that kind, there must be laws; made, and 
enforced, by some common supreme authority. 
That authority must be the government. Govern- 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 233 

ment, whenever necessary, must use force, all the 
force that is necessary, to compel complete obedi- 
ence to those laws. Without force, which can be 
so used, government has no practical value. Demo- 
cratic government, in its more finished form, will 
be a government wherein the judgment of the 
people is the final supreme authority, and in which 
that authority is backed by the united forces of 
the entire community, consolidated under a single 
will, the will of the people, a stronger will than 
the will of any one man, or any few men. Demo- 
cratic government implies a higher authority, and 
a higher degree of strength, than government of 
any other form. 

Good government is the fundamental essential 
of the world's healthy life; of the life of every 
people, and every individual. The functions of 
government are constantly growing; they are be- 
coming, if not wider, at least more complex. Edu- 
cation, the care of the poor and the weak, the 
management of the public highways, the regula- 
tion of commerce, the protection of all the relations 
of life, upon which each individual depends for 
his fullest individual development, and the fullest 
enjoyment of his individual rights and liberties — 
all these fall within the sphere of government. 
The full development, and the most complete 



234 ORGANIZE© DEMOCRACY 

happiness, of every individual, depend on having 
the work of government in the hands of able, wise, 
and experienced men. It cannot be left in the 
hands of professional politicians, who have neither 
the capacity, the knowledge, or the training, which 
are absolutely requisite, if these large public in- 
terests are to be handled with wisdom. 

Democratic government, rightly organized, will 
give us greater efficiency of administration than 
government in any other form. It has, no doubt, 
not yet been fully developed. When, however, it 
is fully developed, its administrative results will be 
as much superior to anything previously accom- 
plished, as the performances of the steam engine, 
the telegraph, and the telephone, are superior to 
the mechanical results of the earlier centuries. 
We can make as great advances in politics, as 
we have in our industries. Our industrial pro- 
gress, even now, is the marvel of the world. Our 
political progress can be no less so. For the same 
reasons. 

The reason for our wonderful industrial pro- 
gress is mainly to be found in our conditions of 
industrial freedom; in the ease with which men 
find their right places; the ease with which men 
of merit rise to the top. No doubt, we owe much 
to our large areas of rich virgin soil; to our variety 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 235 

of climate; to our stores of iron and coal; to our 
lakes and rivers, which have so facilitated our 
solution of the problems of transportation. Much, 
too, is due to blood, to the mental and physical 
vigor of what we call the Anglo-Saxon race, still 
in this country the dominant race. Nevertheless, 
the combination of all these great advantages is 
not sufficient to account for our industrial results, 
which are to-day the marvel of the civilized world. 
Their main cause is to be found in our conditions 
of industrial freedom. In our private business call- 
ings, every individual has a full opportunity of 
rising to that place in the world for which he is 
fit; to a position as high as his abilities can take 
him. The entire industrial world is open to him. 
The possibihty of rising to the top, the possibihty 
of achieving a large success, is the spur in the side 
of the young men, who are seeking their fortunes in 
the industrial world. The certainty, that indus- 
trial brains will bring industrial leadership, there 
is the great stimulus to our industrial activity, and 
the chief cause of our industrial success. 

In the world of industry, too, we have, not only 
freedom of development, and movement, but we 
have freedom of industrial thought. Old methods 
are compelled to face new ones; to vindicate their 
right to survival, in the free competition of indus- 



236 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

trial ideas. In our industrial world, barring the 
tariff, freedom of thought and action are prac- 
tically wathout limitation. 

For a time we had the same kind of freedom in 
our political world. Until the later and more per- 
fect development of the election machine, there 
was always the possibility — that any young man 
of large mental capacity, who " went into politics," 
as the phrase is, would get legitimate advancement, 
by a legitimate use of the same methods that would 
secure him advancement in any private business 
or profession; that is, by honest hard work in the 
line of his special calling. To satisfy one of the 
accuracy of this statement, it is only necessary to 
read the biographies of our statesmen of the ear- 
lier half of the last century. Brains then brought 
to their possessor the same kind of preferment in 
public hfe, that was gained by the use of brains 
in the private callings. 

No doubt, brains, such as they are, are still 
required in the profession of " politics " as it exists 
to-day. But it would hardly be contended, that the 
conditions which insure success in " politics " to-day 
are the same with those which insured that success 
a hundred years ago. Money was no doubt a power 
in politics in the earlier half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. But it was not such a power as it is now. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 237 

Democracy has, for its first fundamental essen- 
tial, political freedom. Every individual citizen 
should have the full and free opportunity of rising 
to that place in the public service to which his 
abilities entitle him; and of rising to that position 
by the use of legitimate methods, by faithful pub- 
lic service. Not only is that opportunity the right 
of the individual. It is also for the interest of the 
people. The people needs for its service its best 
brains. It needs its best men. It is absurd in the 
extreme, to suppose that our vast public interests 
can be well handled by men of only ordinary capa- 
city, and ordinary experience. The men for the 
people's service must be its best. The best brains 
in the community must have the possibility of ris- 
ing in our public service to the highest places. 

There we strike the essential fundamental vice 
of our present system of machine politics. Men 
cannot rise to the highest places in the state by 
the legitimate use of their brains. The supremacy 
of brains and character in the state is an impossi- 
bility — with any system of machine politics. The 
practical difficulty is, that, with machine politics, 
we do not, and cannot, have free elections; the 
people cannot make its own free choice of the men 
who are to hold the places at the head. Many 
thoughtful men have come to distrust the process 



238 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

of popular election, as a process for getting men 
of ability and character in the public service. But 
our elections to-day are not free. The process of 
popular election, even in its present faulty form, 
has abundantly vindicated the right of the pro- 
cess to our confidence, if used in the right form, 
and within its right limits. This American people, 
to-day, the citizens in our large cities, as well as 
the citizens in the rural districts, the vast majority 
of them, are agreed on one thing: they wish their 
public affairs to be in the hands of men of capacity 
and character. They wish something more than 
mere ordinary, average men. They wish the best. 
They will elect the best, if they have a process of 
really free popular election, whereby they can put 
their heads together; can confer, deliberate, and 
finally form their own common judgment, upon 
the merits of candidates, and put that judgment 
into effect in their choice of their public servants. 
Freedom, in the process of popular election, 
with the limitation of that process to its legitimate 
function, the function of original selection, dis- 
continuing its use, or rather its abuse, in the futile 
attempt at the enforcement of responsibility to the 
citizens in mass, that is almost the sum and sub- 
stance of our present political needs. That is the 
chief feature of the reorganization here suggested. 



GENERAL CONSmERATIONS 239 

But in order to secure freedom in the process 
of popular election, we must abolish the secret 
ballot and the term system. We must substitute 
in their place the public meeting. We must substi- 
tute tenure at the will of the people, for tenure at 
the will of the election machine. 

It is hopeless to take refuge in any less funda- 
mental measure, in anything less than fundamental 
organic reconstruction. We must deal with causes, 
not with surface symptoms. We must have a ra- 
tional, common sense, practicable political system. 

The election machine is a very perfect contriv- 
ance for carrying elections. And if we continue to 
turn government into one vast election machine, 
then it may be conceded, that we already have 
nearly as good an apparatus as can be devised — 
for that purpose. Our American fertility of in- 
ventive genius has here stood us in good stead. 
It has constructed the best possible machine — for 
the work to be done. 

If, however, government is to be something 
more than an election machine, if it is to be an 
organized body of men who are fitted to handle 
large public interests with wisdom, in such a way 
as will best serve the highest interests of the entire 
people, then we must have something far different. 
Then we must have, at the head of each body poli- 



240 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

tic, men who are carefully selected for their work, 
doing that work under the constant supervision 
and control of the popular assembly, the people's 
brain, an organ composed of the people's best fibre, 
selected by the people's own judgment, by the pro- 
cess of popular election, which is, for this purpose, 
the process of nature. Nothing less will meet our 
needs. 

But it may be said, that the change here sug- 
gested would create an aristocracy. 

So it would. 

Every government should be, so far as is prac- 
ticable, an aristocracy; a government by the peo- 
ple's best men. Democracy, rightly organized, will 
be an elective aristocracy. By this it is not meant, 
that the process of popular election is absolutely 
certain, in every instance, to select the very best 
man who might possibly be found in the commu- 
nity by the use of infinite knowledge, and infi- 
nite wisdom. Even the process of popular election 
is human. It uses imperfect human beings. Its 
results will be imperfect. My meaning is, that, 
in the long run, in the large majority of instances, 
the process of popular election, if used in the right 
form, and within right limits, is more certain than 
any other human process, to give us the best men 
at the time available, for the highest classes of 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 241 

public work. In other words, the judgment of 
any community, as to the fitness of men for the 
highest classes of public work, in communities 
such as ours, with their large intelligence, with all 
the modern machinery for acquiring knowledge, 
with the modern press for full and free public 
discussion, is the best judgment available, for the 
selection of the men who are to be the community's 
head. The judgment of the community will al- 
most invariably be based on reputations. Repu- 
tations are almost invariably accurate indices of 
calibre and character. Reputations are character 
barometers. The process of popular election, se- 
lecting men on their reputations, will seldom go 
wrong. 

At this point of our study, we may gather some 
instructive lessons from what is termed "parlia- 
mentary government," as it exists in England. In 
the first place, it illustrates most forcibly the safety 
of the concentration of the power of general super- 
vision and control in a single popular assembly, 
even if that assembly be not completely "repre- 
sentative.'* No practical evil has ever resulted 
from this concentration. So far as my reading goes, 
there are few instances on record, of hasty, ill-con- 
sidered action on the part of the British House of 
Commons, in its entire history. Political narrow- 



242 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

ness, excessive conservatism, mainly due to class 
prejudices, there have been, no doubt, in abun- 
dance. But there are few instances, so far as my 
reading goes, of action that has been hasty, ill-con- 
sidered; and no instance within my recollection, 
of action that involved any danger, or evil, which 
resulted from the concentration of the power of 
supreme supervision and control in the hands of 
a single popular assembly. 

In the next place, there could be no evidence 
so conclusive, as to the safety of the people's liber- 
ties in the hands of a popular assembly whose 
members are free from the direct control of the 
mass of citizens. The British House of Commons 
has never been really " representative " of the entire 
people. Its members never have been selected by 
a process of free popular election. It has always 
been, and still is, representative — in the main — 
of the landed gentry. Its members never have been, 
and are not now, chosen by the free voice of the 
entire people. Laying quite aside, for the moment, 
the point of any property qualification for voters, 
a large majority of the members of the British 
House of Commons, even now, hold their seats, 
not by anything that can be properly termed a pop- 
ular vote, but by reason of their ownership of the 
land, and their family influence. Until recently. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 243 

the large majority of those members have almost 
owned their seats, as part of their landed property. 
A large number of them, for all practical pur- 
poses, are still in that situation. In other words, 
a large proportion of the members of the British 
House of Commons have at all times been quite 
independent of any control by voters; have been 
free to act on their own independent judgments, 
without regard to the opinions, or the votes, of 
any so-called constituents. The result has been, in 
the main, highly beneficial to the large majority 
of public interests. No doubt, there has been a 
large weight of class prejudice to overcome. But 
the class prejudice has been overcome, not, in gen- 
eral, by reason of the fears of any popular vote, or 
of unpopularity, but by the mere legitimate exer- 
cise of the power of free thought among free men. 
Making all allowance for some slowness of move- 
ment, arising from the ignorance and incapacity 
of many of its members, we shall still find the fact 
to be, that no other legislative assembly can show 
so long a record of wise legislation, and of legis- 
lation so uniformly in the direction of securing 
full protection for the lives, liberties, and property 
of the entire body of citizens, as is to be found in 
the history of the British House of Commons. Its 
individual members, the large majority of them. 



244 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

have not been in sympathy with progress, or with 
new ideas. Yet they have been compelled to yield 
to progress, and to new ideas. Progress has come. 
New ideas have worked their way, have conquered 
opposition. Property in House of Commons seats, 
inherited with their land, for such it has been 
in practice, has been the means of giving to the 
English people the service of many of its greatest 
statesmen, under what has been practically a ten- 
ure for life. To its " pocket boroughs," the English 
people is largely, if not mainly, indebted, to-day, 
for its present stage of political progress; for its 
present degree of advance in the direction of free 
political thought, as embodied in its legislation, and 
for its present position in the great march towards 
democracy. 

There could be no more clear and conclusive 
object lesson, as to the needlessness of the term 
system, as a protection for the people's liberties, 
and the people's rights. Such is the power of free 
thought and free speech, that almost any body of 
men, of reasonably large numbers, elected by a 
process of free popular election, who are free to 
act on their own judgments, are virtually certain 
to take wise action for the protection of public 
interests. Free thought — and free speech — those 
are the securities, and they are adequate securi- 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 245 

ties, for the rights and liberties of the people. It 
is in the practical suppression of free thought and 
free speech, that we find the conclusive condem- 
nation of our own present political system. If 
the members of the supreme popular assembly 
really " represent," fully and fairly, all classes and 
interests in the community, all shades of opinion, 
as they will do, if they are selected by a process 
of really free popular election in the different elec- 
tion districts, we shall have the strongest security 
possible, with mere human agencies, for the wise 
and eflBcient administration of public affairs, and 
the protection of the people's liberties and the 
people's rights. 

Political systems must be judged by their capa- 
city to produce practical results. So judged, any 
and every hereditary system is fatally defective. 
Inheritance does give a good practical system for 
the transmission of property. But the people's 
offices are not property. They are places for hard 
work, to be filled by able, well-trained servants, 
who are to be selected by reason of their fitness 
for the public service. Any political system, where- 
under the headship of the state passes by inherit- 
ance, is an unsound system. It is founded on false 
principles. It produces a condition of unstable 
equilibrium. 



246 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

At this point, it will be well to consider briefly 
the part played by what is termed "parliamentary 
government" in the development of democratic 
institutions. 

What is termed "parliamentary government" 
is a temporary device, to accomplish the double 
purpose, of retaining the hereditary principle, and 
yet evading its unavoidable evils. It is a forced 
concession to the demand for democracy. It is 
a device of transition. It cannot long endure. It 
stands condemned, by the laws of political dy- 
namics; by its lack of capacity to produce satis- 
factory practical results. It is a passing stage in 
the development of democracy. 

So, too, with the election machine. It, too, stands 
condemned, by the laws of political dynamics; 
by its lack of capacity to produce satisfactory 
practical results. It gives us talkers instead of 
workers; demagogues instead of statesmen; "plat- 
forms," and "issues," instead of practical adminis- 
trative results. It must give way to democracy, to 
genuine "government by the people." 

In every nation, at every period, there have been 
men of large ability, of high integrity, of broad, gen- 
erous public spirit, who have been eager to enter 
the service of the people. The term system, with 
every people that has ever made use of it for 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 247 

any considerable time, has always been a fatal 
barrier, which has in general kept such men apart 
from the control of public affairs. Periodic voting, 
by the citizens in mass, by the secret ballot, al- 
ways furnishes a ready and easy means, whereby 
cheap, noisy demagogues can overpower wise, 
working statesmen. The combination of those 
two pieces of political machinery has never been 
tested with so great thoroughness as by the peo- 
ple of these United States in the last half century. 
Political machinery and political processes, like 
industrial machinery and industrial processes, 
sometimes require to be used on a large scale, 
before their working results become fully appar- 
ent. It was necessary that the combination of the 
term system and the secret ballot should be put 
into operation on a large scale, before there could 
be satisfactory proof of their pernicious practical 
results. We have experimented with that combina- 
tion on a large scale. We now know — to a cer- 
tainty — its actual practical results. 

There is a tendency at the present day to under- 
rate the importance of political institutions. An 
idea widely prevalent is, that every people has as 
good political institutions as it deserves; that the 
practical operation of government, under institu- 
tions of any form, depends mainly, almost wholly 



248 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

on the character of the people; and, that any 
people can get nearly as good working results 
under institutions in one form as another. The 
position is seldom stated in this extreme form. 
But practically, this is an accurate statement of 
a widely prevailing belief. 

This belief involves a great error. 

Political institutions are the tools, the machin- 
ery, of politics, of government. They are as impor- 
tant, in matters of government, as they are in our 
industries. Man's possibilities of performance, in 
any and every direction, are limited by his tools, 
his machinery. "The man behind the gun," to 
use a phrase of the day, is of vital importance. The 
gun, in the hands of the man, is of nearly as great 
importance. Man cannot go beyond the limita- 
tions of his implements. 

Our men are of the best. But our political tools, 
our political machinery, are susceptible of great 
improvement. 

We must have the best institutions. The indus- 
trial well-being, the moral and intellectual well- 
being, of the entire community, and of every one 
of its individual members, depend largely on our 
form of government, on the character of our 
political institutions. 

Still another belief has a wide vogue in the poUt- 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 249 

ical tliscussions of the day. It is, practically, that 
political institutions develop of themselves, with- 
out the agency of man ; that we inherit them ; that 
we must accept them, and submit to them. This 
belief, too, is not often stated in this extreme form. 
But the statement here made gives its real force. 
The belief is an oflFshoot, a corollary, from the 
current doctrine of "evolution," so called. Life 
and institutions, political and other, are vaguely 
assumed to be a necessary, inevitable result of 
pre-existing causes; to be something from which 
we cannot escape, of our own independent volition, 
and independent effort. 

Directly the reverse is the fact. We make, and 
change, our own political institutions. In these 
modem times, as soon as any intelligent people 
reaches the conviction that its political institutions 
are unsatisfactory, that those institutions do not 
give satisfactory working results, that people will, 
in time, change its institutions. The change may 
be slow or quick; it may be violent or peaceful. 
But as soon as any people becomes an intelligent, 
thinking people, whenever the working results of 
its form of government become unsatisfactory, that 
people certainly will, in time, begin to think of the 
reasons for those results, of their causes. In time, 
it will try to find remedies for working defects, and 



250 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

will try to put those remedies into practical opera- 
tion. 

This has been the real reason for every political 
revolution that the world has ever seen — the 
dissatisfaction of a people with actual working 
results. 

Of course, with most peoples, inasmuch as most 
of them are slow and ignorant, the processes of 
revolution will be slow, and ill-advised. Those 
processes will often be the results of ignorant 
impulse, rather than of sound political thought 
and judgment. The reason is, that few peoples 
have as yet given careful study, and thorough 
thought, to the science of politics, to the science of 
political dynamics. The materials for such study 
and thought have not long been in existence. 

But this American people is extremely conser- 
vative. It is difficult, almost impossible, to induce 
it even to take into consideration any suggestion of 
a fundamental change in its fabric of government. 
In order to induce such consideration, we must 
present a case of pressing necessity. 

Is there, then, such a necessity? 

My answer to this question is, that there is such 
a necessity; and that it is pressing and overwhelm- 
ing. 

The reasons are these : — 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 251 

Destruction of the election machine is the abso- 
lute essential, if we are to secure any genuine polit- 
ical freedom; either for the people in the choice 
of their public servants, or for their servants in the 
discharge of their duties to the people. Genuine 
democracy, genuine "government by the people," 
cannot be secured without the destruction of the 
election machine. 

Especially, a radical reorganization of our politi- 
cal system is an absolute necessity, if we are to put 
an end to the present political supremacy of money. 
By no possible means can we entirely destroy the 
power of money in politics. It is not desirable that 
we should do so. Money ought to be a great power 
in the state. It always will be. What we should 
attempt, however, is to take from money its present 
overwhelming political supremacy. 

That supremacy cannot be destroyed, without 
a thorough reorganization of our political machin- 
ery. So long as we continue our present system 
of perpetual periodic term elections, so long it will 
continue to be necessary to furnish these immense 
amounts of money, for the maintenance of our 
standing armies of machine politicians. Plutocracy 
must give way to democracy, if we are to have 
either public purity or governmental efficiency. 
Plutocracy will continue, however, precisely so long 



252 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

as we continue to turn government into an election 
iiuachine. 

Let us go one step further. 

The political life of a community, like the life 
of an individual, of any human organism, must be 
one of steady, continuous growth. It should not be 
a series of revolutions. Healthy growth, for the 
body politic, as for the single individual, consists 
in a process of steady, gradual renovation of all the 
tissues; of the different cells, organs, and members, 
of the entire body politic; by the gradual and con- 
tinuous substitution of new fibre for old. The pro- 
cess of perpetual periodic revolution, of perpetual 
periodic decapitation, for that is the real essence 
of our present term system, is not a process which 
conduces to a continuous healthy growth. 

It is an organic necessity, that each body politic, 
each separate political community, should be under 
a single supreme authority; the authority of a body 
of men carefully selected, representative, whereby 
all the subordinate organs and members shall be 
controlled and regulated; under which the opera- 
tions of all those organs and members shall have 
unity, and harmony. Concentration — and con- 
solidation — are the methods of the modem indus- 
trial world. They must be the methods of our new 
political world. Unity of pohtical control, unity 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 253 

of political action, stability, with the continuous 
steady development of public policies — these are 
the requisites to the healthy life of any large mod- 
ern community. They are possible only under a 
democracy; under a single head, under a single 
brain; under the rule of the representative popular 
assembly, of which the fibre and forces will be con- 
stantly and continuously renewed by the steady, 
continuous change of its individual members. In 
no other way is it possible to have a healthy, 
vigorous, political life. 

Democracy has hitherto generally been consid- 
ered to be government by aggregations of the 
masses; through periodic votes of majorities of 
individuals. 

Government in any such form can — by the ut- 
most possibility — be nothing but a series of revolu- 
tions. Those revolutions may be free from violence. 
They may be had under the strict letter of the law. 
Nevertheless, they will be revolutions. They will 
prevent the possibility of a steady, healthy, organic 
growth. Hitherto, they have caused disaster to 
nearly every experiment in the installation of 
democratic institutions. 

Democracy, with our large modem masses of 
wealth and population, must be something far dif- 
ferent. Democracy must be the government of a 



254 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

people by its best available mind and thought. 
Democratic government must secure a continuous 
organic life, under continuous organic processes. 
It must secure the consolidation, for all public pur- 
poses, of the forces of the entire community, under 
a single will, controlled by the community's best 
judgment. 

In short, democracy must be government by the 
people's brain. 

Government by the people's brain is an impos- 
sibility, under the supremacy of the election ma- 
chine. It is an impossibility, under any system 
of periodic revolution ; even if we assume, contrary 
to the fact, that at each revolution we are to get 
a true and accurate expression of the individual 
opinions at that time of a majority of its citizens. 
An expression of a mere majority of opinions of 
individual citizens is not an expression of the 
judgment of the entire community. 

At the end of the first century of our national 
existence, we find ourselves confronted with the 
necessity of another contest for liberty; another 
struggle for free democratic government; another 
revolution. 

But it will be a revolution of a new kind; a 
lawful, peaceful revolution; not against any one 
man, or combination of men; but against a political 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 255 

system; and not against a system which has been 
forced upon us by a foreign power, but against one 
of our own creation. Strangely, too, the very fea- 
tures in that system, on which we have depended 
for securing the people's liberties, and the supre- 
macy of the people's will, are the ones which have 
turned out in the end to be the destroyers of both; 
of the people's political freedom, and the people's 
political power. It is those features, which have, for 
the time being, destroyed democratic government. 
Actual experiment — an experiment of more than 
a century — has now clearly demonstrated, that 
certain pieces of our political machinery have been 
put to abnormal and excessive uses. The machinery 
has broken down. It served well enough for small 
communities, and small poUtical forces. It will 
not serve the needs of large communities, using the 
large poUtical forces of the present day. It is as 
thoroughly antiquated, as completely out of date, 
as the old corduroy road, or plank turnpike. 

Emancipation is the end to be accomplished; 
emancipation of the citizen, and of the people, 
from the thralldom of machine politics; from the 
tyranny of an institution — a tyranny which has 
become, in its practical results, a more complete 
obstacle to political progress than could be the 
tyranny of any foreign foe. The tyranny of a for- 



256 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

eign foe would rouse instant armed revolution. 
But the tyranny of an institution, especially of 
an institution of our own creation, is so subtle, 
so diflScult of appreciation, that it seems at first 
almost impossible to convince the community of 
its nature and its dangers. 

What we have now to accomplish is, the achieve- 
ment of full political freedom : freedom of political 
thought; freedom of political speech; and freedom 
of political action. 

Outside of the sphere of practical politics, our 
freedom of thought, speech, and action may be 
conceded to be reasonably complete. Even within 
the sphere of practical politics, it is not restricted 
by the letter of the law. So far as concerns the letter 
of the law, every citizen is free to think, and vote, 
as he may see fit ; he is free to speak, and print, 
anything he may see fit, in the way of legitimate 
criticism on public men and their action. 

But in actual practical politics, the individual 
citizen has nothing that can be correctly termed 
freedom. The very essence of the citizen's freedom, 
under any form of government that can be rightly 
termed democratic, is that the citizen, in the choice 
of public oflficials, shall be free to act, within rea- 
sonable limits, on his own judgment. No doubt, 
he must act in combination with other men. In so 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 257 

doing, he must, to a considerable extent, be willing 
to surrender complete freedom of individual action. 
But the citizen must have far greater freedom of 
action, especially of combination, than he gets, or 
can get, as matter of practice, under our present 
political system; whereby every citizen is virtually 
compelled to become the blind follower of one or 
another group of machine politicians ; under which 
he becomes, practically, a mere attachment to the 
election machine. 

When, too, we consider the action of our public 
officials, we shall find that there, too, genuine free- 
dom of action has practically disappeared. Fifty 
years ago, when a public measure of importance 
came up for consideration in one of our legisla- 
tive assemblies, we were reasonably certain, that it 
would receive a free public discussion, and a fair 
public consideration, on its merits. Public mea- 
sures were — in the main — decided by the use of 
the natural, normal process of public thought. 

To-day, however, free public discussion, free 
public deliberation, upon the merits of important 
measures, is a process that has for the time almost 
fallen into disuse. Well-informed men no longer 
expect, that an important public measure is to be 
fully and fairly considered on its merits, in any 
one of our many popular assemblies. The action 



258 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

of our popular assemblies, on the large majority of 
large public questions, is secured in advance, by 
the virtual purchase of their members, through 
the payment of money, or other valuable con- 
siderations, to powerful machine politicians. In- 
deed, when we consider the extent to which both 
citizens and public officials are under the control 
of the machine politicians, and how completely 
the machine politicians are under the control of 
money, it is hardly an overstatement to say, that 
under our present political system, instead of es- 
tablishing the supremacy of the will of the peo- 
ple, we have established the supremacy of corrup- 
tion. It is hardly an exaggeration to say, that the 
body politic is thoroughly permeated with political 
pyaemia. 

The subtlety of the disease, with its slow and 
gradual development, has blinded us to its real 
nature. It has been a gradual growth, the result 
of our great increase in population and wealth. Our 
increase in population has been the cause of the 
increase in the volume and intricacy of our elec- 
tion machinery, with the consequent increase in 
the use of money, in carrying our annual elections. 
Our increase in wealth has been the cause of the 
increase in the money value of the control of gov- 
ernment officials. The two causes in combination 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 259 

have operated to take the selection and control of 
our public officials and public affairs out of the 
hands of the citizens, and vest it in a large body of 
men, who " go into politics " to serve their own per- 
sonal ends; oftentimes for the reason that in the 
natural course of affairs, on their own merits, or 
their demerits, they have fallen into the ranks of 
the unemployed. 

The magnitude of the result, the completeness 
of the tyranny which we have established, is beyond 
calculation. The reason is, that our growth in 
wealth and population has been so phenomenal. 
Our election machine has become a monstrosity. 
In ancient and mediaeval times, we have seen tyran- 
nies of single men, or of single classes. But their 
power has had comparatively narrow limits; for 
the populations and resources under their control 
have been comparatively poor and weak. But here 
in this twentieth century, the most intelligent people 
on the face of the earth, the richest people, in some 
ways the freest people, lives under a despotism, 
which works a virtual destruction of the people's 
freedom of choice in the selection of its public 
officials, and of the freedom of action of those officials 
after they are chosen. The large majority of our 
citizens are virtually disfranchised. They number 
to-day nearly eighty millions. The public officials 



260 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

who are selected, and therefore controlled, by the 
election machine, comprise the entire body of our 
local, state, and national officials. Their numbers 
go into the hundreds of thousands, if not already 
into the millions. The public treasuries, which are 
under the control of our self-appointed despots, 
make an annual expenditure of thousands of mil- 
lions. No Roman emperor, and no king, tsar, or 
kaiser of modern times, has ever had the control 
of such immense masses of wealth and population, 
as our machine politicians of the present day. 

The overthrow of their power is a mere impos- 
sibility, through these annual rotations of men, by 
means of our present periodic process of so-called 
popular election. Whenever, at one of our annual 
elections, we work the overthrow of one set of pub- 
lic officials, all that we accomplish is to put in 
their places another set of men, of practically the 
same kind, who are in their turn the creatures, and 
the puppets, of the machine politicians. No doubt, 
we do occasionally compel the machine politicians 
to nominate candidates of fairly good repute. But, 
in general, the men so nominated are men who 
can be controlled, and used, with or without their 
knowledge, by the skillful men who pull the political 
wires. These occasional elections, of very respect- 
able men, on very respectable "platforms," as they 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 261 

are termed, give no substantial improvement in 
practical results. In general, in the long run, how- 
ever great may be our efforts, however often we 
may make a change in men, it is quite beyond 
our power to accomplish any substantial improve- 
ment in methods. So long as we maintain this sys- 
tem of perpetual rotation, by the annual election 
machine, so long we shall maintain its results. We 
shall make no substantial improvement in the 
administration of public affairs, so long as we main- 
tain our present system of rotatory politics. 

It is frequently said, and it is generally believed, 
that the power of the machine politicians, and the 
resulting abuses, are limited to local municipal 
politics. 

But this is a great error. The power of the 
machine politicians is even larger, and more com- 
plete, in the national government, than in our local 
and state politics. The petty local political organi- 
zations are of slight political importance, in com- 
parison with the great moneyed organization, which 
has for a long time been the power of supreme 
control of our national government. 

This organization had its origin at the time of 
the Civil War. Then began the growth in our 
national government of what may be accurately 
termed the great Senatorial Trust. 



262 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

It came into existence in this way. Our heavy 
war expenditure made it necessary to make large 
changes in the tariff, and impose heavy duties on 
imports. No revenue bill, and no appropriation 
bill, could pass without action by the Senate. 
Thereby resulted the Senate's power over the na- 
tional finances. But the most important power of 
the Senate lay in the matter of appointments to 
public offices. No appointment to a high adminis- 
trative office could be made, without a vote of the 
Senate. This fact soon resulted in a nearly com- 
plete control by the Senate of all such appoint- 
ments. Very early the custom arose, of submitting 
to the respective Senators of the different states the 
appointments to office in those states. This gave 
to the members of the Senate a power beyond 
calculation, in both state and local politics. The 
control of the tariff, and its frequent revision, with 
the control of the currency, and the pension fund, 
the monumental fraud of the nineteenth century, 
together with the control of the appointments to all 
the federal offices, have enabled one organization 
of machine politicians to retain for forty years 
an almost unbroken dominance in the national 
government; and thereby to compel the payment 
to their party treasuries of very large amounts of 
money, from all the business and industrial inter- 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 263 

ests affected by tariff and financial legislation. The 
sums of money so paid have gone into the hun- 
dreds, and probably thousands, of millions. Where 
any local political organization has taken dollars 
by the thousands, or tens of thousands, the great 
national "machine" has taken its millions, and 
hundreds of millions. The plunder of the public 
by our local political organizations is a thing quite 
inconsiderable, in comparison with the enormous 
amounts that have been paid to the politicians 
who have had the control of the national govern- 
ment. The pension frauds alone have been the 
means whereby plundering politicians, of both the 
" grand old parties," have stolen from our national 
treasury more than a thousand millions of dollars. 
Senatorial combination — the great Senatorial 
Trust — constitutes the foundation, and the bind- 
ing strength of the great national election machine, 
in its two parts, its two so-called "parties." Its 
members, belonging to each of our great parties, 
are admitted into all manner of large industrial 
and financial enterprises, by reason of their power, 
not only in the national government, but in the 
state and local governments. Coal companies, iron 
and steel companies, sugar companies, tobacco 
companies, companies for the mining of metals, 
companies for the development of industries of 



264 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

all kinds, for the use of electrical power, for the 
virtual ownership of our public highways — nearly 
all the largest business enterprises of our modern 
industrial world, find themselves virtually com- 
pelled — to admit these political magnates to a 
share in their financial results. Thence come the 
immense fortunes, which are amassed by the mem- 
bers of our national Senate, accumulated, not from 
their salaries, not as the result of their individual 
lawful business labors, but as the price of their 
political power and influence. 

In nearly every state in the Union, the politi- 
cal power of the United States senators is over- 
whelming. Every local organization, no doubt, has 
its own "leaders," its own commanding officers. 
But in state politics, and in national politics, the 
supreme power is vested in the great Senatorial 
Trust. Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York — what is 
the limitation that any intelligent man would set, 
to the possibilities of accomplishment, by a com- 
bination of the senators from those three states.'' 
Even so far back as 1860, it was the combination of 
the machine politicians from Illinois, Pennsylvania, 
and New York, which gave the presidency to 
Mr. Lincoln, by bargain and sale. Every President 
since Mr. Lincoln, with the exception of the Vice- 
Presidents who have become Presidents by the 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 265 

death of the elected President, has obtained his 
nomination, and consequently his election, from 
the national election machine — virtually by power 
of appointment. In the exercise of that power of 
appointment, the controlling element has been 
money. 

No doubt, it is an impossibility to frame any 
system of government which will be automatic; 
or which will give us an absolute security against 
the corrupt use of money. But it is a possibility, 
and a possibility easily within our reach, to frame 
a political system, under which the power of money 
used corruptly shall be less, and much less, than 
it is with us to-day. But such a system must be one, 
under which free open public discussion, the normal, 
natural processes of free thought and free speech, 
resume their places as the fundamental processes in 
the selection of our highest public servants, and the 
control of public affairs. We must have such a form 
of government, as will make it possible for us to 
use the people's best judgment, the people's best 
thought, in the selection of the men at the head of 
our different governments. But when those men 
are once selected, we must give them our confi- 
dence. We must give them a free hand. 

No government can be operated, except on the 
basis of confidence in men. First, we must have 



266 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

confidence in the people ; in its ability to make a 
wise selection of the men who are to be its chosen 
rulers. Thereafter, we must have confidence in 
those chosen rulers. We have made an experiment 
quite long enough on the constitutional basis of 
distrust. 

We must revise our ideas of democratic govern- 
ment from the very foundation. We must finally 
and completely abandon the idea, that democratic 
government means government by the citizens in 
mass, in any form. Only by the representative 
popular assembly, by no other organ, by no other 
means, so long as human nature remains what it 
is, is it a possibility for any community, for any 
large number of human beings, to form and utter 
their united common judgment, as to either mea- 
sures or men. We must altogether abandon the 
idea of getting action by a people, through any 
mere collection of the separate votes of individuals; 
through any aggregated action of the citizens in 
mass, acting directly in their own separate individ- 
ual persons. The people's judgment must be the 
product of the people's united common thought. 
Such thought can be had only in a deliberative 
popular assembly. 

The fundamental "issue," it is seen, in the 
ultimate analysis, resolves itself into one between 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 267 

the establishment of organized democracy and a 
continuance of our present futile attempt at mass 
rule. The changes, here suggested, though fun- 
damental, involve nothing new or untried in the 
way of political machinery. They involve the adop- 
tion only of methods which have been thoroughly 
tested; and found by actual experience to be the 
only practicable methods, for handling men and 
affairs on any large scale. Single-headed admin- 
istration — every practical man knows that it is 
absolutely essential, and indispensable, to admin- 
istrative eflSciency. Individual responsibility — of 
the single administrative head, to some body of 
men, which has a continuous existence, which can 
meet, deliberate, and act, as one body, which is 
capable of forming an intelligent reasonable judg- 
ment — is absolutely indispensable, if our public 
affairs are to be administered with wisdom and 
efficiency. Vesting the supreme control of public 
affairs, subject to necessary constitutional restric- 
tions, in a carefully selected body of able, experi- 
enced men, is evidently the only practicable means 
of securing wise control. 

Periodic mass work, in any form, is hopelessly 
inadequate ; and is in conflict with the fundamental 
principles of democratic government; indeed, of 
all rational government. Democratic government 



268 ORGANIZED DEMOCRACY 

must be a government in which the power of su- 
preme control is the judgment of the people, not 
an enumeration of the opinions of single citizens, 
even if it were practicable to get such an enumer- 
ation by this machinery of annual election. But 
as matter of actual fact, these annual elections do 
not give us even as much as that valued result. 

The final question for us to consider, after all is 
said, is this : Is it really necessary, for the perma- 
nent health of the body politic, that we should now 
make a thorough reorganization of our political 
system ? 



EUctrotypedandfyrintedly H . O. Houghton &» Co. 
Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. 



OC; 



